Sewing Plans: Trendy Metallic RTW Inspired Trench Coat

Firstly, for those of you who have been through the storms on the East Coast and have been able to give the all-ok on your blogs - I am happy you made it through!  For those who haven't been able to post yet - I hope you are doing ok too!  I realize there is a lot of flooding and there are a lot of power outages and in either case blog posting is probably really low on the priority list, but I hope we are able to hear good news from you soon.

Now, on to the actual post.

Ok, so I have already decided to take the pressure off myself in terms of finishing my year-long sewing challenge.  I mean, I might still make my final goals (I need to make 2 more projects, at least one from the Tim-approved list), but life got super busy this year, and although I feel like I spent a lot of time sewing, less of that was for me than normal.  And I still want my sewing projects through the end of the year to at least pertain to the challenge, even if they aren't the Tim-approved garments.  In any case, we all know I have been obsessed with the trench coat pattern in the latest Burda:

Burda Trench Goodness!

Well, part of this obsession has to do with my general love of classic shapes and modern details, but another part has to do with my excitement over using this pattern as part of my "RTW Knockoff" item for this year.  So many other sewing bloggers do such a great job of translating runway designs to real life wearable fashion, and I really admire the ability to do that.  So, I am going to attempt to knockoff one of the current runway trends, but it is probably one of the least versatile and most frivolous - metallics.  A lot of the metallic designs are rather flashy and not necessarily as "wearable" as other looks I could attempt to replicate, but, on the other hand, I really want to make something sort of frivolous and fantastic and beautiful and just because I want to make it.  Especially right now when real life is feeling, well, less than glamorous.  So, therefore, metallic trench coat.

I was really inspired by the metallic rainbow Burberry Spring 2013 collection:

Metallic trench coats!

The front gun flap details are a similar shape as the Burda pattern.

I have also been looking at older Burberry coats for inspirations as well:

Just a few days after seeing the Burda early preview and about a month after the Burberry runway show was all over the news, I found this amazingly loud fabric at Joann fabrics:

Loud.  As in yelling "take me home!"  A plan was hatched, and it slowly started pushing all other plans out of the way.  It was something I had considered putting off until later, especially since I have so many other sewing projects planned, but then I figured, when else would one make a metallic snake print trench coat?  I mean, honestly, for this project, the time is now.  And so it shall be.

So, them's the plans.  Fabric.  Pattern.  Inspiration.  Now just all the hard work of fitting and cutting and sewing it all together.  I think the trick to this project is going to be making the coat look "legitimate" - I want it to look expensive, not tacky.  And I want it to look like fashion, not costume.  Over the top, yes, but like I picked it up at an end-of-season sale at one of those giant pop-up Halloween stores, no, not so much.  I am hoping that an appropriate choice of coordinating fabrics and using the Burda pattern's idea of piping, I can add enough details and depth to the coat to prevent it from looking like a shiny foiled Christmas gift wrapping.  At least, that's my hope.  Or I could just end up looking ridiculous.  Remains to be seen.  But, in my brian at least, this will be fabulous.  I have decided I will make it fabulous.

...at least, I hope.  Wish me luck.