September 11, 2019 Bev Hulme Leave a comment
I do have to make it clear my son is gorgeous and, of course, like a lot of teenage boys, he would sometimes press my buttons ….but even I was a bit taken aback by this request! ‘
‘Er, no its okay, I can just stop your allowance next week’…’No, Mum, I need a straight jacket for school.’ Ahhh…
After the initial raised eyebrow, it was necessary to ask the obvious question… when for?
I forgot to mention he’s not a ‘planner’. Well that’s a bit unfair (and in case his uni tutor is reading this, he’s LOADS better at it now) but in those days, he was very good at giving me a few minutes (hours if I was lucky) warning for his next requirement, project, need for a lift… you get the picture.. Of course, he needed this by next week, for his Theatre Studies IB solo performance of ‘Blackout’ by Davey Anderson.
A Simple Design
I had a look at a few pictures on-line and figured I could do it by creating a ‘backwards shirt with too long sleeves’. I found some heavy cotton fabric at my local store and used the back of the shirt to create the front of the garment. No tucks or darts, just a straight neck and sleeves. Once I had the front the two back pieces were easy and then the sleeves which I made a good 8 inches longer than I would have. I added tape down the front and each side to ‘anchor’ the arms because otherwise it was possible to pull them over the head and ‘escape’ Houdini style.
How to Close it at the Back
A straight jacket is usually held closed with leather straps and buckles but I didn’t know where to buy leather and I hadn’t ever worked with it so that was a non-starter. Instead I used thick tape and luckily I was able to find simple metal buckles to sew on and there we had it..
Made in three days, including shopping time. I don’t know if it helped but he did get a reasonable grade for his IB and I think the straight jacket was used again when a long-standing staff member left the school… as a joke, of course….
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Posted in: School Costumes, Straight Jacket 2018Filed under: costume, costumedesigner, costumemaker, costumer, design, straightjacket, theatrecostume
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