Chore Coat 2.0

April 28, 2026

This is a well-loved chore coat. The beautiful patina of the fabric, the way that it’s thin at the edge of the cuffs, the tear at the corner of the pocket showing just how many times hands have been in and out. You can’t get that off the rack. Age is always earned. This coat still has some life left in it so when M, the owner of the coat, asked me to make a copy I was happy that the construction was fairly simple. It meant that I could make a copy without taking it apart. It’s not always possible but this coat was the perfect candidate.

There were two other things that I loved about this coat. The outside is utilitarian but there is a pink and purple party going on inside. I swear that a good lining, one that makes you smile when you see it, changes how you feel when you wear it.

And then there were the buttons. When I fist saw them, I didn’t really understand what I was seeing. The buttons are metallic gold but one half of the circle is empty and the fabric shows through. M was having a hard time finding the right buttons for the new coat and I suggested that she use the ones from the original coat. It’s such a nice way to bring the old over to the new. And look at how they arrived in the mail! Now every time I see those buttons, I smile.

M lives in Toronto and I don’t go to Ontario very often so it makes in-person fittings pretty tricky. Since the coat was a straight copy, I was pretty confident we could manage without a fitting. I did up a test and sent it in the mail. We had one hiccup with there not being enough room in the sleeve head to get a good range of motion with her arms. We did a virtual fitting with me making suggestions and giving instructions and her doing all of the cutting and pinning on her end. I drafted a new sleeve and mailed it back to her. She pinned it onto the test and it was just the ticket. She was back to being able to move her arms.

All that was left was to sew it up the final coat. She picked this beautiful cotton canvas in a colour called Ocean. I can just tell that it’s going to age well. And the lining is just as much of a party as the purple and pink but it’s the perfect compliment to the blue fabric and gold buttons.

It’s the sort of combination that will look amazing with the cuffs rolled up.

Quite possibly the best feature of this coat are the pockets. They were tricky to sew but so worth the effort. It looks like a regular patch pocket but it’s so much better. You can get at one of the pockets from the top just like a regular patch pocket. Then there is a second pocket that you access from the side. It’s totally brilliant and I have a feeling I’ll be borrowing that idea in the future.

The great thing about making a copy is that you can see where some of the problems were with the original. In this case, it was the pockets. M said that they never felt really secure and we can see the fallout from that in the tear on the right pocket. The original coat used a single row of stitching to secure the pocket. I did a double row of stitching but also included some fabric on the inside to give the stress points some reinforcement.

The original coat was also missing a hanging loop. No coat is complete without one.

I can’t wait to see how this coat looks in ten years. I just know that it’s going to have some stories to tell.