Tobacco-brown wool-tweed peacoat
SHOP
Next time
The peacoat will return in October 2013 in an equally splendid wool-tweed. Email shop@sehkelly.com if this is of interest to you.
Garment
Peacoat made in London, made of tobacco wool-tweed, hand-woven in London, with real horn buttons and charcoal wool-melton lining.
Each peacoat comes with its own 20-page “making of” newspaper, which tells the story of making, from design and development, through to pattern-cutting and production.
Price: £425.00
Pick your size:
Sizing
Standard-fitting garment that fits true to the marked size. Can be tried for size at the workshop (information at bottom of the page).
| S | M | L | |
|---|---|---|---|
| European size | 38 | 40 | 42 |
| Chest / pit-to-pit | 19.0 in | 20.0 in | 21.0 in |
| Body length | 29.0 in | 29.5 in | 29.5 in |
| Sleeve length | 24.0 in | 24.5 in | 25.0 in |
The peacoat is a double-breasted jacket, mid-length, with a placket of ten buttons. It has a large collar with slightly rounded edges, and relaxed shoulders.
The peacoat is made from a wool-tweed that has been woven in London from the yarn of rare and heritage breeds of British sheep. Up close it can be seen to comprise two colours of yarn; the warp a mid-brown and the weft a darker tobacco. Buttons are Midlands-made and are dark matte horn.
The peacoat has curved cuff-tabs, and large patch pockets, with a curved turn-down flap. These pockets are dual-use: they may be accessed from the top, or as “warmer” slouch pockets from the side. The underside of both the cuff-tabs and the pocket flaps are a cream / light-brown version of the cloth.
There are also jet pockets at chest height, which have a button-and-loop fastening. Both sets of pockets on the outside of the jacket are lined with cotton. Internal pockets are a large button-through patch-pocket (below-left) and a smaller jet pocket, which fastens with a button and loop (below-right).
As worn
The chap here is 5ft 10in (177cm) and wears a size small.
Making of
The peacoat, like every garment here, begins at the workshop as a sketch.
The sketch, as well as assorted other development notes, are developed into a pattern with a local pattern-cutter, at a specialist outerwear factory in North London. The shape and details are plotted out over a period of two days.
The cloth is a wool woven from the yarn of breeds of British sheep — Jacobs, Black Welsh Mountains, and Hebrideans — and woven by the one-man-mill of north-east London. The one-man-mill has sourced, relocated, and restored a bunch of 19-century, narrow-width, looms from West Yorkshire.
Before being woven, the yarn must be wound into warp and weft. The winding of the warp is done by the one-man-mill on a sectional warping drum. Tens of thousands of meters of yarn, split onto 144 perns, is hand-wound on this contraption.
Once wound, the warp is relocated to the loom — and the weft, split out onto 184 individual perns, is loaded into the shuttle. Once set up and calibrated, it’s time for the one-man-mill to pedal — propelling the shuttles back and forth to hand-weave the cloth over a period of two days.
Once the cloth is woven, its weight and characteristics well understood, a prototype is made at the North London outerwear factory in a comparable but less expensive cloth. Once the prototype is perfect — the balance, shape, and details just right — the peacoat finally goes into production.
