Peacock Jacket Finished, and First Outfit

Today, I'm thrilled to show off my finished Peacock Jacket! Woo! I built an outfit with it right away, and wore it to work on Monday. 

As a reminder, we started with this:

It's a lovely pastel blue leather jacket, but I was getting bored of it. 

So I turned it into this: 

And this: 

I did a bunch of gold touch-ups on the back, and then sprayed the whole thing with a lacquer to help keep it looking nice. 

And now, the outfit! 

I'm relieved to see that it's light enough now in the mornings that my stair pictures are bright again. Yay! Spring is coming. 

I built the outfit to show off the jacket - nothing scene-stealing. 

• Jacket - /id, thrifted, customized by me; last worn here in September 2021 for a Mom-Day Adventure
• Shirt - Yest; last seen here in January with zebra and PANK
• Skirt - DaRue Petite for Draper's & Damon's, vintage 80s, thrifted; first worn here in October 2021 with an embroidered moto jacket
• Shoes - Channi B; last seen here in December 2021 with gold pleats and dragons
• Coat (below) - L'Atiste, consignment, Vancouver; last worn here in January

I kept the underneath items very classic (a white shirt) and simple (solid colours) to let the jacket shine. 

Unfortunately, there were very few people in the office. Thanks for bearing with me, Carol-Anne! I also showed it to Andy the security guard. 

I'm really pleased with how it looks. 

The gold rubbed off almost immediately in the elbow bend areas, but other than that, it held up well all day. 

I'll have to see if I can sneak in another wearing of it when I'm seeing more people! 

I enjoyed wearing this skirt again! Although it's a true "pine" green and the belt/shoes are more teal, it all flowed together. 

Done up. I only wore it like this when I had my coat on. 

I like how the design works on the front. 

Open again. 

How would you style this? I'm open to suggestions/ideas! 

Masked up.

More dark teal. 

Outerwear.

This coat is loose enough not to rub on the jacket. It was a lot warmer than expected today (10 degrees!) and didn't rain as had been predicted. 

Accoutrements:

I'm ready for pretty much any weather. This Ed Hardy scarf is almost the exact shade of blue as my jacket. 

• Silk scarf - Ed Hardy by Christian Audigier, consignment
• Hat - gift from Tammy
• Gloves - Roeckl, consignment
• Mask - by Mom

The stuff: 

Easy shoes - there's a hidden platform in the toe area. The colour is teal, but when I held them up to the pine green skirt, they were nearly an exact match, just a shade or two off. 

Minimal bling: 

The jacket's blingy enough! 

• Earrings - thrifted
• Silver/onyx ring - Toccara, vintage fair
• Fulvia Ring - Wendy Brandes
• Brooch (on hat) - Le Chateau, c. 2007?

The black "tie" I wore with the white shirt is an extra sash piece that came with some article of clothing now lost to the sands of time. I have a few skinny sashes like this - they're useful once in a while. 

Back to the jacket. 

Art Project: Peacock Jacket: The Big Reveal

Now we'll have a look at what I've done from my early December 2021 update. If you missed any of the process pictures, you can revisit them:

• Part 1: Design and first drawing - here, November 2021
• Part 2: Black-lining on the back - here, November 2021
• Part 3: The finished back - here, December 2021

Since I last did an update, I have completed all the sleeves and the front of the jacket, along with all the colour, gold and touch-ups.

Here's where we last left off - I'd finished the back, including all of the gold-work.

Ooh, so pretty...

I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do on the shoulders. I'm not reinventing the wheel here, just doing some of the same designs I'm familiar and happy with. Roses! 

On the upper shoulders, I did a pair of roses, with two feathers, copying the design from the peacock on the back. 

I knew that I wanted to evoke the look of chains draping down the arms, like what a punk rocker might have attached to a jacket. I drew a draped "chain" using the same pattern as on the back. 

Getting the extra darkening in with the black pen. 

This is always my favourite part - the design looks so much more deliberate and artsy. 

Getting the darker black on the chain. 

I like those feathers - they are surprisingly easy to do (once I figured out how!). 

I didn't do anything on the middle section of the arms, but did the front and sides of the cuffs. 

All ready for colour! 

I've added the colour to the upper sleeve here. 

And to the cuff. It doesn't look finished, because I hadn't added the gold at this point. Working on a soft leather garment, and thrashing it around as I work on it (some angles are better than others), means that all the previous work is going to get scrunched and handled, folded and bent. 

I noticed that the gold that I'd done on the back was flaking off. Sigh. I'm resigned to the fact that the colour fades over time (you'll notice that the colour lightens up a lot), but that was a lot more fading than I'd hoped for. 

You can see where the green arrows are pointing that those loops have lost most of their gold. I touched up the one at the top where the red arrow is. Big difference. 

So, having learned that, I decided that the gold would be last on the sleeves and front, and then I would retouch all the gold that needed it on the back. Once I'm done the full jacket, it's not going to be treated as roughly as it would when I'm working on it. 

Here are both sleeves done, upper arms and cuffs. 

I did the fronts of the pockets when I was working on the back (they have the gold done). 

Some close-ups. I will be adding gold along the feather lines...

…and colouring in the loops, bumps and all the small "bubbles" coming off the chain design. 

How the sleeves look from the back. Both sleeves took about 6 hours total. 

I don't do design where my arms are going to rub against my body or where they might rest on a table or desk - easier to leave those sections blank. It's really important that I continually test out how the jacket looks when it's on, as opposed to the on the hanger, so that I get the design to look right. 

I took my jacket with me on our trip to Powell River a couple of weeks ago, and worked on it for about 6 solid hours, deciding what I was going to do on the front. 

I decided on big roses at the waist (they make the waist look small), with more chains just above the the boobs, and at the hem opening. A small leafy design went on the lapels - they needed something. You can see that I'm adding some more leaves on the right, but haven't done them on the left yet. 

I added a secret rose to the back of the collar. 

You can see that my further manipulations of the jacket have caused the touched up loop's gold to flake off. 

With the chestal region chains, I carried them up under the collar - I like being able to show them off. 

I'm kind of just making it up as I go! 

All done with the colour on the front, including all the "halo"-ing I do with the blue colour around the loops and chains. I do a line of a dark blue, and then use a lighter shade to blend/fade it out into a halo of colour. 

I'm using Tombow alcohol-based markers with a paint-brush felt tip for all my colouring. They blend really well.

The fresh colour is much brighter than it ends up a few days later. 

Those two shades of red calm right down, as do the two shades of green in the leaves. You can see the difference in the sleeves and the front, which were done about a week apart. 

Colour on the secret rose.

And we are ready to add the gold! 

But first, gotta sign it! 

I did this on the inside back hem. 

And here we are - the front is all done. 

I'd originally intended on changing out the buttons, but I actually like that they just disappear into the jacket. It lets the design stand out. 

And the back - I redid the gold on the loops/chains and hem only - I didn't redo the gold on the feathers, as I liked how it looked more faded there. 

I also went over some of the black that had gotten covered with the liquid gold ink, just to tidy it up and make it pop. 

I hope you enjoyed seeing my jacket come together over the past couple of months. I've added a small summary to My Art Projects tab, so that you can find this easily if you want to show your friend/spouse/mom (hi! I know you're all out there!).

I'm onto my next project, for my hairdresser Kaitlyn, who brought me a teal jacket to play with. I've decided on a theme: Spiderwebs!