Episode "I": Update

Way back at the beginning, I talked about how I would one day do an Imperial Officer costume from the Star Wars movies (original trilogy, thank you!) to go with my husband's. With all the work on the Enchantress lately, I haven't really been doing as much on it as I should be (the shame!), but I thought I'd do an update nonetheless. :)

OK, first off, I'd like to point anyone interested in doing one of these to the Imperial Officer forums at the 501st Legion main site. There is a wealth of information to be had there. Go mine it! This is where we started when we were doing my husband's IO, and it's where I got the tip to start here:

This is a McCall's Civil War costume pattern (M4745). It's a good place to start, but it needs modification - more or less modification depending on how accurate to the original you want to be.

As I think I've mentioned, I have a bad tendency to want to do things "right". So, armed with this pattern, some photos from a museum exhibit of the Star Wars costumes, and photos of the inside of one of the original movie IO's (all found on the forums), we set to work.



There are several things that are right with this pattern - the seams on the back, the fact that the panels are seamed at the waist, for example. But there is still mod'ing to be done!

Modifications include: 1) reshaping the panel that overlaps in the front so that it's the same shape as the IO's in the movie, 2) putting in pockets on either side for the code cylinders, 3) tweaking the way the shoulders lay (they kinda kink off towards the back on this pattern), 4) shortening the panels over the legs, and 5) adding a seam to the overpanel on the left side (to match movies). We also ended up adding shoulderpads and sleeveheads to get the sleeves to look right. And because I wanted this to look just like the original, we reseamed the right panel. It's not something you can see in the movies, but in some of the photos we had, it's there, so I had to put it in on mine (unless you really are that worried about being completely accurate, you can skip this step and save yourself a lot of headaches).

Now, I don't have photos of this process because most of it was done with my husband's, but I'll sum up by saying that we ended up tracing the original pattern onto brown paper, taping it all together to do the seamline modifications and cutting it to pieces again, putting together a muslin mockup, pinning fixes there, transferring those to paper patterns, redoing the muslin mockup, etc, etc, until we came up with one that worked. Then we made those same modifications to a paper pattern made off the pattern pieces of a smaller size and created my muslin. (Note: I don't know why the centers of the following photos have a green tinge to them. I apologize.)

I tried to label some of the changes on there for folks who might want to try this at home. This is the mockup of the jacket above the waist (no leg panels), laid out as if it were being worn. Note the added seam on the right side of the picture (left side of the jacket if you had it on). Also note the pocket seams labelled. Let me tell you about those...

There are several theories on doing the pockets. A very popular one is to cut the side pieces longer and then fold it up onto itself to create a pocket. I was worried that the heavier fabric we were using would cause too much bulk there, so I decided to do in-seam pockets out of the lining fabric. We really should have done them out of the main fabric as you can see the color change if the pocket gaps - one of the things I'll change on mine. I'll probably still do them as in-seam, though. Although probably cut-on.

Here's the same shot with the overpanel laid back so you can see the craziness we indulged in. (This is that step you can skip if you want to save yourself the frustration.) Now, it's perfectly allowable to do this side as a long piece folded up on itself for the pocket. However, I had found a photo that showed one of the original movie IOs with the overpanel flipped back, and they'd done this side with this funky square inset piece. The seam for the pocket is at the top of the piece, and then you've got a seam that runs down under the overpanel, but that doesn't go all the way to the shoulder. When you put this piece in, you have to do an inset corner, which has to be one of the most annoyingly finicky techniques ever. *sigh*



And just for all those folks who may want to try this, here are a couple of photos with the muslin turned inside out (it's easier to see where the seams are).

This is the same lay-out as the first mock-up photo, only inside out, so it closes the opposite way.

And here's the second photo, inside out, showing the seams on that funky square inset piece a little better.




There are still several things I need to do to this to make it fit me and look good. The first is to shift the long seam on the overpanel piece in about 1 1/2 inches. I will also probably tweak the long seams a bit to account for the fact that men and women are not shaped the same (in-seam darts? who knows!).






The good news about working in brown paper and muslin is that you're not so worried about staining them should the red wine spill. So indulge in some nice Languedoc or Provencal reds if you're pattern-mod'ing with paper!

Happy sewing!