Project Review: Mughal Coat 1.0

    As is the way with many people who habitually make things, I saw a beautiful piece of craftsmanship and decided I had to have it for myself. Being unable to steal a coat from the Victoria and Albert museum, not the least because of the ocean in the way, I was left with the option of making one. So I grabbed some fur trim off of the giving table and traded a pan of cream cheese brownies for fabric and got to planning.

 

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O16066/hunting-coat/ 

    This absolutely beautiful piece is a coat from 1610-1630's India, from the reign of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. This particular form of coat, called a nadiri, was specifically reserved for Jahangir and those men whom he favoured. So I knew I couldn't make this coat exactly (unless any kings want to declare themselves my best friend?) but I could make something close.

 

    I dove into my image resources to see what I could find that is more befitting my station as 1) not a high ranking bestie of the emperor and 2) a woman (although this one is more of a loose goal since gendered clothing is silly). Ideally, I wanted something with short sleeves, fairly long, and with dramatic volume so...to the paintings collection, Batman!

 

  Preparation for the marriage of Mahmuda, daughter of the grand vizier, and Ayaz, son of the second vizier

 

 The four destitute friends go to a wise man who gives each one of them a magic shell to be placed on top of the turban

 The young man of Baghdad reunited with his slave-girl

  

Hamza converses with Hura the genie while a dragon approaches 

    So, some trends I noticed among the coats in paintings I saw (of which these are only some)

1. Women's coats tend to be shorter than men's, but this is a trend not a rule. As a note, the short coats were introduced under Emperor Jahangir who is slightly out of period so I am aiming more the style from the previous Emperor
2.  Fur collars show up multiple times, all on men's coats. I happily ignored this for now, as I have some nice fur I wanted to use plus previous note about gendered clothing
3.  The coats all seem fairly full in the body, but women's seem to be more fluttery. Perhaps a tendency towards lighter coat fabrics? Also ignored this because I have nice fabric for this coat that is fairly stiff. Future plans are brewing for a more drapey coat
4. Short sleeve coats go to a bit above the elbow, long sleeve coats go to the wrist. I can't find any coats with very short or medium long sleeves.
5.  Women's coats are all worn on top of long sleeve, long skirt dresses. I haven't seen any that are worn on top of a choli or a short sleeve, short skirt dress (not relevant for this project but good to know for future garb plans!)

    With this in mind, it was time to figure out a pattern. I started by looking through my copy of Indian Costumes in the Collection of the Calico Museum of Textiles for inspiration, as well as analyzing the hunting coat. The YouTube video about the hunting coat on the V&A's channel was particularly helpful as an insight for how the coat shaping works.

Costumes in the Collection of the Calico Museum of Textiles pg 332  Catalogue No.11, Accession No. 1603 

    This pattern seemed to be a good combination of the hunting coat and the paintings in its flair (in both senses of the word) as well as its length. Plus, it is mostly square construction! I decided to base my pattern off of this, but make the waist more angular instead of the curved waist that this coat has in order to reduce fabric waste.

    I used my height, shoulder width, and hip width to draft my pattern, using the ratios of the above pattern, what I could glean from the V&A coat, and vibes. I made a mockup of the pattern and was pleased with the fit, so I proceeded to cut the fabric!

    I got this really nice fabric from a fellow SCAdian and was excited because it is closer to 16th century Mughal patterns than I have been able to find in a lot of other fabrics. Plus the fabric is nice enough on both sides that I decided to make this coat reversible. Once the pieces were cut, I lapped the seams and hand sewed the coat, since machine sewing would have been too visible for a reversible coat.

 

Front and back of the fabric I used for the coat      Close up of one of the hand stitched seams

     Sewing this took forever! I shouldn't be surprised since there are some very long seams and because every seam had to basically be sewn twice in order to sew both sides down. Plus, then I had to add the fur and edge binding. I made the edge binding out of some spare red silk I had, and I think the colour really complements the red in the fabric. The fur was a very long narrow strip, so I first doubled it and sewed the raw edges together and then sewed another piece of pink and gold trim on the raw edge to hide it. I then sewed the whole thing to the inner edge of the coat to finish that edge. Lastly, I added the pocket slits so I will have access to my pant pockets (which are period for 16th century Mughal!).

 

Close up of the fur trim and the extra pink and gold trim-trim    Full coat with the fur trim and edge binding

 I think it turned out quite well and I'm excited to wear it to my next event! If I remember, I'll try and get a better picture. I even have enough fabric left to make a matching reversible skirt, but that is a project for later. If I look at another lapped seam in the next couple months I will not be held accountable for my actions. I'm planning on making another one of these coats, but with a shorter skirt. I think I will also add a gore to the back to help with shaping. This one is pretty baggy in the back, I think due to my sway back as well as my hips being a bit too much for a flat piece of fabric to handle. It is nothing that a belt can't help with, but still good to improve for the future.

 Let me know what you think! I'm excited for my next few garb projects, so hopefully I'll have some more stuff to talk about in the coming months. Until then, keep crafting :)