Hunter Lace Trench - Burberry Inspired - McCall's 5525 (OOP)

To God Be The Glory for the GREAT things He has done!  Finally!  The BIG reveal...my Burberry inspired Hunter Lace Trench! 

I began this project in February.  Once I missed the deadline for entering it into a contest, I gave it a rest.  The coat was probably about 90% complete at the time.  I was in no hurry at that point.  Later, however, I made a commitment to have it done by the end of April.

My inspiration, Burberry's Kickback Lace Trench,which retails for about $5500, was not my first choice but when I went to the fabric store in search of fabric, this hunter lace caught my eye.  I chose a lighter shade of green for the crepe underlay. 

The Bright Metallic "trenches" in the Prorsum Spring 2013 Collection were my first choice but I could not find any fabric that inspired me, locally or online.  Then I gave much consideration to the "Double Dutchess" designs.  Love the cape on the "Caped" trench and the sleeves on the "Tailored" trench.  I also loved the three-dimensional effect of the "Corset Trench".  They are all so FABULOUS!!!!

In the spirit of truly being "inspired", as opposed to being a "copy cat", I decided to add black lace to my project.  Halfway through the project I realized that green (as HAUTE as it may be for Spring) has never been one of my favorite colors.  I needed something to break it up and put my own spin on it.  The black lace was perfect to serve this purpose. 

Virginia and my husband thought that I should have kept the "kickback" in green but I wasn't feelin' it.  There are some things I wish I had done differently and I will detail those, along with the construction details, in a separate post. I have all sorts of construction pictures, by the way, that is THE most inconvenient thing - to take pictures amidst sewing but I made an exception for this project.

This post would have been waaaay too long had I detailed the construction.  Once I developed a method for attaching the lace to the crepe it was smooth sailing from there.  I tried my hand at a few tailoring techniques, self-drafted the "kickback" (that's a post all by itself), went back and forth about some of the details and even collaborated with my husband on certain things...uhm yeah...I was desperate :-). It ended up being a lot of fun.  He became very interested in and somewhat opinionated about this project.

Well...that's all for now!  I'll be following up this post with, what may turn out to be, several posts about my experience making this coat.  Thanks to those who gave an opinion about which coat in the collection was their fave.  Until next time.....take care and GOD BLESS!