Le Velvet Smoking Jacket: Gomez Addams & Chirp Thing

We all know the most inter­est­ing man in the world drinks Dos Equis, but do you know what he wears? It’s a shame smok­ing jack­ets are no longer pop­u­lar and rarely seen on men today. These mid thigh-length vel­vet & silk robes are bad ass!  Just imag­ine how lux­u­ri­ous & relax­ing life would be if men wore smok­ing jack­ets dur­ing their morn­ing cof­fee or evening read­ing by the fire. Per­haps, that’s an unre­al­is­tic expec­ta­tion since we’re accus­tomed to our fast lives and easy-wash gar­ments. But heck, who knows — maybe they’ll make a come back!

For over a year now, I’ve want­ed to make one of these sophis­ti­cat­ed throw­backs. I’ve pro­cras­ti­nat­ed because of the high cost of vel­vet and my lack of a vel­vet board. But final­ly after stum­bling upon some clear­ance vel­vet & a sewing con­test, I was final­ly pushed to make the jacket!

Gomez from Addams Family

I’m enter­ing it into an “Inspired by the Movies” con­test. The movie char­ac­ter that inspired my jack­et was Gomez from the Addams Fam­i­ly. I almost chose a sol­id col­ored vel­vet to make a jack­et inspired by Ebenez­er Scrooge, but I decid­ed on Gomez since I had a plas­ter hand that looked sim­i­lar to Thing the creepy but help­ful char­ac­ter who popped out of box­es through­out the Addams Fam­i­ly home – wish that he could help me with my sewing projects!

I used Folk­wear’s smok­ing jack­et pat­tern. I orig­i­nal­ly bought lin­ing for the jack­et, even though the pat­tern did­n’t call for it.  But since I couldn’t afford to spend too much time on this project, I skipped the lin­ing and fol­lowed the direc­tions as they were written.

I used the largest size offered by the pat­tern. I did­n’t make any mock-ups to test the fit pri­or to cut­ting the vel­vet. I think the largest jack­et fits fine, but if I had test­ed the fit ahead of time I would’ve made the arm­holes larg­er. (I hope my broth­er does­n’t grow!)

The jack­et is made with a dark pais­ley print vel­vet and accent­ed with black vel­vet in the col­lar, lapels & cuffs and maroon vel­vet in the under­arms and belt.

Here I am pos­ing as Mor­ti­cia Addams. My design aes­thet­ic is not dark, but I had fun pos­ing for this Addams Fam­i­ly photo!

I also made my black lace over­lay dress (two years ago)!

Why do I own a plas­ter hand? Where did I get the hand? Who’s hand is it?

The hand is a mold of my broth­er’s hand doing the Ball State “chirp.” The “chirp” is beak and feath­ers you cre­ate with your hands dur­ing 3rd down sit­u­a­tions at Ball State foot­ball games.

This “Chirp”  Thing was a gift to my mom from my sis­ter. If you know my mom, you can see how per­fect this gift was for her!

And it was per­fect for the pho­to too!

I was remind­ed of my grade school days mak­ing friend­ship bracelets when I made the belt loops.

Belt Loop Instructions

Would I make this vel­vet jack­et again?

I wish men still wore these jack­ets, but I don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly want to be the seam­stress mak­ing them. Vel­vet is a pain to sew. It takes a long time to sew because it requires lots and lots of pins and baste so that the vel­vet does­n’t move.

So I have no desire to make anoth­er vel­vet smok­ing jack­et unless the buy­er real­ly wants one and is will­ing to pay me what its worth – you are forewarned 🙂

Thing approves!