LEARNING THE FRENCH COUTURE JACKET TECHNIQUE

A French couture jacket isn't about speed or finish — it's about method, patience, and not losing your mind. This is where that started for me, learning by doing it wrong about ten times before it clicked.

I went to northern Italy for an eight-day workshop on building one. Class was in Arona, near Lake Como, which sounds very glamorous until you remember I spent most of the week hunched over fabric with a needle, not lounging by the lake.

The instructor lives in Arona, and Milan's about an hour away, so we went there to source fabric and see the Armani Privé exhibition — twenty years of his haute couture. Standing that close to garments like that is humbling. I remember thinking "okay, I need to actually concentrate when we get back to the workroom" — and I did, mostly.

From day one I knew this was going to be slow. Apart from a few quilting lines on the machine, the entire jacket got built by hand. I'm talking five-centimetre seam allowances in places, just so there was room to fix my own mistakes later. Every line — waist, balance points, all of it — marked with tailor tacks instead of chalk. No shortcuts, no cheating, no "I'll just eyeball it."

Doing that much by hand forces you to slow down whether you like it or not. You physically cannot zone out — every single stitch is a decision you have to actually make, which is either meditative or mildly stressful depending on the hour.

Funny enough, this was the same instructor who taught my kimono classes in Japan. Totally different garment, totally different country, but somehow it felt familiar — same painfully slow pace, same "do it by hand or don't do it at all" attitude.

This first post is just me setting the scene. The next two get into the actual class, the techniques, and watching this jacket slowly come together over eight days.

1. Learning the French Couture Jacket Technique (you are here)
2. Inside a French Couture Jacket Workshop in Italy
3. Making a French Couture Jacket by Hand