Circa 2005, I was lulled into a cheap and cheerful moment by British Vogue when they declared this Primark jacket to be the best buy of the summer. Well, at £12, I thought why the heck not. I was still going through my poor student phase and the fit was pretty good for a twelve quid jacket. That is until Primark jacket-mania swept the nation like smallpox did in eighteenth century Europe. Literally, I could not walk out of the door without spotting that jacket on at least five people (and that was just in my wee little suburb town). So fashion-toff that I am, I banished the jacket to somewhere where the sun didn't shine. However, on a bored Sunday last week, out it came and I made something like an extension of the jacket to spruce it up, give it a new identity and hopefully disguise it's humble Primark beginnings.
With some white felt which I was going to make into a dress, a glue gun (my adhesive of choice), some popper fasterners and a few hours in front of Wimbledon men's final and then the World Cup final, I made like a cape type garment that attaches to the Primark jacket with the fasteners. I ran up a bunch of ruffles with the felt haphazardly and sort of arranged them in an equally random fashion and basically tried to make something that would extend the jacket into one big ruffle THING. A product of a hotchpotch of influences - Balenciaga, Lord Nelson, Issey Miyake pleats and memories of the joy of felt material.
i love swishing around in it in all it's selfish glory of a statement piece. Gosh... sometimes I do freak myself out with the funny ideas I come up with.
