My Fashion Icon

This week's theme at PRP is Fashion Icon. I wanted to sew something for the boy, so this was a bit hard for me. There are not a lot male "icons" out there.

So I started to think of celebrity men who have a style I like. And strangely enough, I thought of Justin Timberlake. (which is super weird because I don't even like pop music) I just remembered that he usually is dressed nice. I googled up some photos and saw, yep, he looks good. He also has started his own clothing line with a friend called William Rast. Which to me says, fashion icon. And to confirm, yes, some fashion magazines have actually applied that title to him.

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Great.
So now I have an icon to be inspired by, what should I design for my boy?

Justin Timberlake has a pretty dressy style. So many of the photos had him in suits, vests, and at a minimum a jacket of some sort. Even when he is dressed casually, there is nothing frumpy about him. He looks pretty classy. And, I think he wears more neck ties than anyone else in his generation.

Well, my boy also likes to wear nice clothes. He also loves it when I sew for him and he loves colors. (just wait until you see what I made for boy week; very colorful.)

Since a suit jacket is such a common item on Mr. Timberlake, I designed up a blazer for my guy. It is charcoal grey twill and lined in a light grey. I made welt pockets in the front and a back vent for comfort.

Then I slightly modified an Ottobre Fall 2007 pants pattern for some jeans. The jeans are also a charcoal colored and I top-stitched like crazy in light grey. Many of the William Rast jeans had a lot of details accented through top-stitching, so I thought that would be a nice element on these pants too. I really like the contrast it gave to the pants and how it made them tie in with the jacket.

Finally, I needed to add some color and something special. For that, I made a fitted t-shirt out of a dark purple thermal knit fabric with grey stitching (with a double needle) on the hems. And, I added an applique tie!

This was something new for me. I used my friend's silouette and ordered some iron-on vinyl. For the tie, I used a black flocked vinyl sheet. It did not stick very well to the textured thermal knit, but it stuck well enough for me to stitch around the edges. Eli was very excited when he saw the tie!

I did have some challenges with this outfit. The sleeves I originally drafted for the jacket were way too small. They were actually too skinny. And I am so glad I had Eli put the sleeves on before I attached them to the jacket. I re-cut the sleeves for both the jacket and the lining, and had Eli try the new ones on. They were loose enough to look tailored but still allow for a shirt underneath and some moving.