Matrix

The Matrix is, of course, a fantastic film, but it never even occurred to me to make a costume from the movie until Reloaded came out, and my brother expressed an interest in Neo's coat. I was intrigued by the challenge and agreed to make it for him before Revolutions came out; however, I soon found that there were going to be a few problems to overcome.

Dilemma #1: Pictures of this coat were few, and the DVD would not come out until just a few weeks before the next movie.

Dilemma #2: The coat is black, making it extremely difficult to pick up the details we needed to reproduce it.

Dilemma #3: There is apparently more than one coat! They made many different coats for Neo to meet various needs and achieve various looks. Thus it is difficult to determine exactly how the coat is put together, considering you don't really know when you are looking at which coat. To make matters even more complex, many sequences include both action shots and CGI.

Dilemma #4: No really good patterns for this exist if you are basing the coat on the few pictures that were available. (No, that costume pattern that Simplicity came out with is nothing close. The cut is all wrong, and it is severely lacking in fulness.) I decided that the most important things to me were 1) the mandarin collar, 2) the fulness of the bottom of the coat (when he spins, it appears to be a full circle), and 3) the fit in the torso area. Based on these requirements, I looked for a pattern that would come close to meeting them.

Dilemma #5: Finding a fabric that comes close to the look of the original coat. We based our idea of what fabric we should get on the theater teaser posters; you could tell that the fabric was actually more gray than black due to a fleck of white; you could also tell that the fabric was wool. We ended up finding something pretty close to this at Stonemountain & Daughter in Berkeley; it is 100% wool that is black with white flecks. (Later pictures revealed that the fabric also has a kind of basket weave texture to it, but we did not see anything like that at any of the fabric shops we went to.)

With all of these "dilemmas" I knew that I had to make a muslin first, not matter what pattern I started out with. The pattern I chose was one I had already successfully made for my brother, but with a very different purpose; it is intended as a Renaissance jerkin, but I made it as a sort of LOTR inspired tunic for him for when the Two Towers came out. (I don't remember the pattern company or number off the top of my head, but it is the one with a mandarin collar and fairly long skirting). Obviously, the pattern needed serious modifications to become Neo's coat, but I felt it was as good a place to start as any. Three muslins, and I'm still not all that happy with the way this coat fits my brother.

First, the modifications. The pattern I used was not originally intended to have sleeves and the armscye was far too big to simply put a sleeve in, so I had to completely adjust this; in hindsight, it probably would have been better to either start with a pattern that had armscye that were at least close to fitting correctly, or to invest in a tool that would help me create the correct curve. As it is, I think my armscye is pretty close to being correct, but I can't help the sneaking suspicion that some of my fitting problems may have come from problems in this area. Obviously, the pattern did not come with a sleeve, so I pilfered one out of a coat pattern; I specifically wanted a coat sleeve that had the seam in the back, rather than under the arm; this was merely a preference with me, not a fact I observed about the coat in pictures. I also didn't want darts in the pattern, so I drafted them out. I needed to make some minor adjustments to the waistline seam to make it a little less obvious a "v" in front. I decided to eliminate the back seam since it was not really helping with shaping at all (if my brother had needed more room across the shoulders, I would have put it back in, but that was one area that we did not have a problem with). Finally, we made some slight adjustments at the neckline to make sure that the collar would sit where we wanted it to.

The bottom half of the coat had to be completely improvised. I knew that I wanted the bottom to be a full circle, so I cut out one half circle for the back piece and two quarter circles for the front. I measured the waistline of each top piece and cut out the waistline of the circle accordingly. I stay stitched this edge immediately, knowing that it would most likely stretch, but I still had a little difficulty in fitting the waistlines together, especially in the back where there was a longer edge to deal with. A possible solution might be to cut the circle waistline slightly smaller than the top waistline (maybe as much as half an inch on the front pieces and an inch in back).

My biggest problem. I wanted to make this coat as form fitting as possible while still giving my brother reasonable mobility. I have begun to suspect that this is only possible if one is as stick skinny as Keanu Reeves was for this film. I would hope that this is not true, and that it just takes a better seamstress than myself to figure this thing out. Here is the situation: when I got the body fitted enough (including an excellent fit in the armscye) the sleeve was way too tight. When I actually got the sleeve to a size that would be comfortable, the body of the coat was too big. I thought and thought about it and just couldn't figure out a way to get material out of the side seam without making the armscye smaller or a way to make the sleeve bigger without increasing the armscye size. At this point, we have settled for the body of the coat being a little baggy under the arms rather than making my brother walk around like a statue. I may attempt reshaping the armscye to be a bit lower under the arm. This should help us keep the size of the sleeve while still allowing me to take in the side seams.

(Now that I am looking at these pictures, I'm not happy with where the armscye is hitting him, even at the top of the shoulder. I am definitely going to need to make some alterations before starting on the wool.)

To be continued...

Final update

Adjusting the armscye made a huge difference, both moving it in to hit at the right point at the shoulder and dropping the lower part of it down a bit. I still wasn't perfectly happy with the fit in the torso, but there was a huge improvement once I lowered the armscye and took in the side seams a bit. I also turned the lower front sections into 1/8 circles. Once we got the whole thing finished, we realized that we probably could have taken some of the fabric out of the back too, but it still looked pretty cool the way it was; at least it didn't look to narrow, which is what I wanted to avoid at all costs.

I'll get more pictures loaded as I get them taken and developed/downloaded. I'm determined to get a shot with the wind or a big fan blowing the front of the coat open, or one of him spinning, so that I can show the fullness of it. In the two pictures I have here, you can see the comparison of the lining and the final coat.

This coat is finished, but you can see my latest project on my costume weblog.

Books 'n' Threads

Costume Page