Get Your Craft On: Make Jenny Humphrey’s Coat

To be a girl on a budget, Jenny Humphrey clearly doesn’t skimp on coats. She wore this Milly Peter Pan coat to the club in “Dare Devil.” It retails for $590 (though it’s on sale now) at Net a Porter. Be aware, though, that the largest size is 10.

The coat is lovely and the print is pretty cool. But the real devil is in the details. What makes the coat both retro and modern are a couple of things:

1, Peter Pan collar.
2, Three quarter length sleeves.
3, Large gold buttons.

This, you can replicate.

All you need is a single breasted winter coat. This shouldn’t be too hard to find - I have a couple in my closet (check the closets of your sisters, mothers and grandmothers) and I’m positive that you could find one in a thrift shop. Mine is an old black wool coat with a pointy collar, long sleeves and black plastic buttons (nice, huh?)

Peter Pan collar. If you can’t sew a lick, consider finding a tailor to make some tweaks. The collar can be tricky. If you think you’re up to the challenge, I recommend cutting a pattern first (cool tutorial here) and reconstructing the collar to a Peter Pan collar. Basically, you’re ripping out the existing seams, trimming the edges to the desired shape and putting the collar back in.

Three quarter sleeves. Again, consider a tailor if you can’t sew. But if you can, you have two choices. Try to “hem” the sleeves yourself to the appropriate length (just below the elbows) - this is the easiest way to do it but also the most dangerous! The other option is to use a seam ripper to take the sleeves out and deconstruct the sleeves using a three-quarter length pattern. You can get a cheap one like this one to work from.

Buttons. For the buttons, you’ll need three large buttons. Jenny’s coat used large gold colored buttons - but find the buttons that suit your style and the fabric. My coat is solid black, so I like these (available online with lots of cool other buttons at The Sewing Place, or you could just pop into Joann’s and browse until you find ones that you like). Ideally, buy those the same size as the old ones - if so, you won’t have to fidget with the buttonholes. Just pop the old ones off and sew the new ones on.

Depending on the existing length of the coat, you may need to hem the coat to knee length - remember, you want a little “swing” to your coat and the longer length of a winter coat will tend to be heavy and hang low.

See, with a good seam ripper, a few notions and some patience, you can transform a blah coat into a modern “Jenny Humphrey” special. Actually, from her loft apartment with her sewing machine, I think Jenny would be impressed!