Saturday, June 6, 2015

KCI Jacket Reproductions

Well, the trip to the fabric warehouses wasn't entirely fruitful, but it did give me a couple of options for the KCI Jacket of Embroidered Doom. The first option was a lightweight silk suiting from Armani (yes, that Armani!), that was a little dark and super, super light weight. I would have to back it with something to get it to lay right and give it a bit of body. The second option was a poly taffeta that was the right color and weight, (and a great price), but I really wanted to use silk for this project, so I'm feeling a bit torn. Do I go with budget + correct color but wrong fabric, or correct fabric + okay on budget, but wrong color and weight? Augh! I'm leaning toward the poly because I know I'd eventually end up wrestling with the weight of the silk and hating it forever, so until I can find a better option, the poly taffeta's at the top of the list. I'm going to wait until after Costume College to totally commit to a fabric, though, since we'll be hitting the garment district in LA, and they may have something suitable tucked away among the vast quantities of fabric there!

Anyway, in doing research for the jacket, I was surprised that there are really only two reproductions (outside of the film world) that can be found online. The first is the well-known Reine des Centfeuilles silk reproduction.

 

When you search for the KCI jacket, this one invariably pops up in the search results, as well. It's a stunning reproduction, with great attention to detail. The color is perfect and the embroidery is very detailed. There is very little information on their website, but it appears they used a silk taffeta.

The other is by the bloggess over at One Delightful Day, who recreated the jacket and gilet for a production of the play Der Schauspieldirektor.


I absolutely adore the wig and hat that she made to go with it! She created the ensemble from seafoam colored silk taffeta. She used the RdC reproduction as a reference, since there is only one photo of the original KCI jacket and it doesn't show much detail.

I found lots of sites and blogs talking about how much they loved the KCI jacket, so I was a bit surprised not to find more reproductions.  It makes me even more excited to work on this project, and add my own recreation to that list!


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