Custom Orders: The Ten Eyck Coat

I've had in influx of custom orders in the past month that are keeping me busy. Right now I'm working on an 18th C open-front gown. Then I got an order for six pairs of breeches from the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket, meant for their production of Cinderella. After that I got an order for a tailcoat, an Edwardian skirt, more breeches and a waistcoat. With all that and my other two jobs, my order queue is full up through Christmas. Custom orders are nice because they pay more, but they tend to have sharp deadlines. I don't have room to stock a hundred of yards of fabric, so I have to order fabric almost every time I get an custom order. And I'm just so nice that I schedule shipping dates sooner than I should. Or maybe it's just that I have two other jobs that keep getting in the way.

The Andres Ten Eyck Coat.

The tailcoat order in my queue is for a replica of a surviving 18th Century coat that belonged to a Dutch immigrant, a Loyalist during the War for Independence. The coat now lives in the Missisquoi Museum in Quebec.

The coat is scarlet wool with linen lining and brass domed buttons. I already have the scarlet wool and brass buttons, ordered from Wm. Booth Draper(once again, very fast shipping). The linen lining and buttonhole thread are coming from fabric.com. I really wanted to order silk twist for the buttonholes, but at $6 for 22 yards of thread, for thirty buttonholes it would have added roughly another $20 to the material cost.

 The back vent. The rough measurements of the original coat are 40 long, 34 chest, 17 from shoulder to shoulder, and a 26 inch long sleeve- a little bit smaller overall than my client.

Cuff detail.

 Pictures courtesy of the Missisquoi Historical Society. 

For more information about the coat contact Curator Heather Darch via the Missisquoi Historical Society website, or visit the 100 Objects Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network site. Stay tuned! Coat construction starts mid-November.