1920s Black Velvet Jacket With White Faux Fur

After admiring antique 1920s velvet jacket for years, I finally decided to sew one myself! 😀 Even though I hate sewing velvet and fake fur fabric because it’s so messy: After sewing the whole room is covered in black and white fluff! But at least, the jacket turned out nice. 😉

‘Competing for popular favor with the extremely long coat so much in evidence this season, we find an entirely new fashion. The brilliant little jacquette style, but recently launched by Paris, has already gained the approval of smartly dressed women.’ (Fur Jacket, 1923)

Black Cotton Velvet & White Faux Fur

I had everything in my stash to make my 1920s velvet jacket. The buttons and the black cotton velvet ribbon for the button loops were from my grandma. The white faux fur fabric was leftover from a stuffed toy I made a couple of years ago. And I also had some cream-white taffeta lining fabric in my stash. I used this fabric to line the jacket but I also used it at the cuffs and sides of the jacket because the leftover faux fur wasn’t enough. And a few years ago my aunt gave me a small leftover piece of this expensive black cotton velvet fabric which was just enough for my 1920s jacket! 😀

By the way, did you know that fake fur was already produced since the 1910s? You can read more about the history of faux fur in the Smithsonian Magazine.

The fur jacket ‘may be purchased in rich black silk seal plush […] Jacquette is bloused onto a snug fitting band at hips, which clasps with composition ornament lacquered in oriental motif.

The smart standing collar is of silver gray chinchilla fur fabric, fashioned to resemble the rare and expensive chinchilla fur, and matches the wide cuffs upon the bell sleeves. Full lining of handsome figured sateen.’ (Fur Jacket, 1923)

Antique 1920s Velvet Jacket Inspirations

My inspiration were 1920s velvet jackets like this pretty Milgrim jacket, this 1920s fashion plate, this 1920s fashion plate and this 1920s photograph. Here’s a 1920s blue velvet jacket with fur, a 1920s green velvet jacket, a 1920s brown velvet jacket and another 1920s black velvet jacket with white fur. My 1920s velvet jacket is also inspired by three antique fashion plates of skirt suits from 1926 and 1927 in Fiell’s and Dirix’s “Fashion Sourcebook 1920s”: two were from Atelier Bachroitz and one from Album Tailleur de Luxe.

And here’s a free sewing pattern for a similar simple 1920s jacket aka the “new hip band coat”. And I pinned even more inspirations for my 1920s velvet jacket to my pinterest board “1920s Outerwear”.

1920s Black Velvet Jacket White Faux Fur Art Deco Zig Zag Soutache Braid Pattern — 1920s finger waves & faux bob hairstyle

Related: 1920s Faux Bob Hairstyle Tutorial For Long Hair

Fabric Piecing

I only had 40 x 230 cm of the black cotton velvet fabric and about 40 x 45 cm of the white fake fur. So I had to piece the fabrics together to have enough for a whole jacket!

At both hips, above the fur and taffeta fabric, I added a small pintucked panel of the black velvet fabric which I had originally made for another coat a couple of years ago. But I didn’t need it then. So I cut the panel in two and added a piece on each hip.

And I even had to piece together the faux fur collar because I didn’t have enough for the collar and cuffs. So I used every small fabric scrap. Some of the fabric scraps weren’t even the size of a coin! 😉 I zigzagged the faux fur fabric scraps to the taffeta lining. You can feel where the pieced-together part is at the collar but you can hardly see it, yay! 😀

After all this fabric piecing, my 1920s velvet jacket actually consists of 41 pieces!

Refashion

At first, the jacket was shorter than it is now. I had already used some of the black cotton velvet fabric for another sewing project so I didn’t have enough velvet fabric left to make the 1920s jacket longer. The jacket was just over waist-length: the whole panel with the zig-zag pattern wasn’t there.

But the jacket was too short (too cold) so I never wore it. Then after a couple of year, I decided it’s time for a refashion! I had already taken apart the skirt I had used some of the velvet fabric on. So now I had enough fabric to make the jacket longer. However, because velvet fabric has a nap, I had to do even more fabric piecing so that all pieces of velvet were in the right directions. At first, I had accidentally attached the velvet in the wrong direction and had to rip the seams again, duh! And even after carefully pressing all the horizontal and verticals seams of the new panel, the seams were still very noticeable.

So I decided to buy black rayon soutache to hide the seams. After running a poll on my instagram account in what pattern I should attach the soutache, most voted for this Art Deco zigzag or triangle pattern. The soutache pattern works really well to hide all the seams. Yay! 😀