Tutorial: Suit Coat to Tailcoat

Sometimes, you just need a tailcoat. You might be… Um… Well, say you’re headed to…

Let’s get real: You probably won’t need a tailcoat very often, and with a price tag of upwards of $500, you’re probably not going to buy one. MrsGryphon is a thrifty shopper and found me one for a great deal, but I’m always a bit nervous to wear it, and I’m definitely not going to modify it for a costume.

Let’s say, though, that you want to be a zombie magician or Jack Skellington. You can get the job done modifing a thrift store suit coat, and at under $20 to make it, you can paint it, splatter fake blood on it, or get fall down drunk in it and not have to worry.

Step one is to get yourself a thrift store suit coat.

You’ll either want to look up a reference image for a tailcoat or the coat you’re mimicking, then use chalk to draw out the outlines for where you’ll be shortening the front and shaping the back.

You’ll need good, sharp scissors for the next step.

Cut along where you marked, making sure that you keep the lining of the suit coat flat so that you’re not dealing with a wonky lining when you get to the next step.

Next, you’ll head to the sewing machine.

Disclaimer: There’s a right way to sew this, and what I’m about to show you IS NOT it. This is quick and easy, and it gets the job done, but this is for making a costume tailcoat, not one you’d wear to a fancy dinner or whatever.

Go ahead and fold the edges over and pin them down, making sure that the lining is folded under so that you’ll be tacking it down when you hem the edge.

Sew down all of your cut edges. Make them look as OK as you can. They won’t be perfect, but as I disclaimed, this is for costumes only.

Okay, we’re looking pretty good.

If you want to extend the tails like I did in the example, you’ll take the pieces you cut off of the front and sew them to the back. We’re doing this wrong, and I’m not sure there’s a right way to do it, so just make it look the best you can.

That’s not what I’m doing today, though. I’m making a Jack Skellington coat, so I’ve traced the ragged back of Jack’s coat onto the back of my coat.

I stitched over my markings and then trimmed around them. I could have hemmed it over, but I decided I like the look of the edges as is.

So, now you know what I know about making a second-hand suit coat into a tailcoat.

Good luck, and have fun costuming out there!