Before that decision was made, I decided I had to make the jacket myself while the show was still in the zeitgeist. And if I were to wait for the official version, who knows how long that would take, how much they would be, and if they’d be sold out in seconds. For a DIYer like me, making something is part of the fun. So here’s how I went about making my own Heated Rivalry jacket.

The most important thing was to find a white sherpa jacket with a stand-up collar. Bingo, I found this one at Uniqlo on sale for only $29. It’s a woman’s jacket, but many of the basics at Uniqlo are unisex, and this was no exception. The size large fit me perfectly (I usually wear a men’s small), and my local Uniqlo store had it in stock. It’s not technically sherpa, but the fluffy fleece is pretty close. And it’s not bright white but off-white, which I actually prefer.

Then it was time for the jacket details.

I found the varsity-style block letter patches from Etsy.

In another Etsy store I found the maple leaf patches.

And in a third Etsy store I found this red grosgrain ribbon for the collar.

But my favorite part of the jacket is the chest pocket zipper. The Uniqlo jacket does not include a chest pocket like Shane Hollander’s. So I created a fake one just by adding a 6-inch zipper I found on Amazon and had it sewn on the chest, adding a red zipper pull with a strip of extra grosgrain ribbon. I think it totally makes the jacket. And the whole trompe l’oeil of it is hilarious.

Now, I’m not that good with a sewing machine, so I pinned everything in place and took it to my favorite local tailor to sew it all for me. They did it in two days and did an amazing job.

Now I’m coming to the cottage!

Well, the danger in creativity was in full force when I decided to paint the lyrics to the song on a blazer. I had never done this before, and searching on the web there weren’t really any examples of people doing this except for a few artists painting on denim. But I wanted to paint words on a black suit. What kind of paint would be the most opaque? White paint is notoriously tricky and can just disappear. And would I even be able to have good enough penmanship to paint on fabric. Okay, my penmanship is actually pretty good. But could I do it with a paintbrush?

At first, I thought the best way to create this suit would be to find a really opaque white fabric marker. I googled the best white paint markers, tested a few of them on the inside pocket of the blazer, and it was like disappearing ink. The white did not show up at all. It had to be paint then. So I googled the best opaque white fabric paint, and what I found was Jacquard Super Opaque White Textile Paint. It was available at my local Blick art store, so I picked up a bottle to try. Testing it on the inside pocket, it worked!

This is the blazer I found to paint on. It’s from Uniqlo. It seems that all the blazers I’ve done makeovers on have been from Uniqlo. They are perfect for me because the XS size fits me with no alterations needed. And they’re super cheap, so I don’t feel like I’m taking a big risk by messing up an expensive article of clothing. This blazer was $39, marked down from $69. I decided to try it on the blazer first before buying the matching pants, which were also $39.

I painted the blazer a section at a time to allow the paint to dry. People wonder if I used a template or masking tape to line up the words. Nope. I just started painting and hoped it would all be straight enough. At first I was really nervous, but as I went along, it was really fun and I knew my letters didn’t have to be perfect. In fact, the imperfections make it cooler because then it’s obvious it isn’t printed fabric but actually hand painted.

So after having success with the blazer, I bought pants and painted them too. By this time, I was painting confidently and quickly. Oh, the great thing about Uniqlo pants is they hem them for free at the store. Gotta love the cost-saving.

I’ve worn this suit in public now, and let me say you can’t be shy wearing it. People will stare. But in a good way. I saw women turn their heads and whisper to each other about it, and I was asked who the designer was. It was me! I think I’ll wear this out a lot more. But I won’t jump into the river Seine in it barefoot. If you know the La La Land song, you’ll know what I mean.

To create the Mondrian blazer above, I bought a cheap blazer from Uniqlo and painted it with DecoArt So Soft fabric paint. I wanted to paint another blazer with flowers, so I bought another blazer on sale from Uniqlo (I think it was $29). Here is what the blazer looked like beforehand.

It was a nice lightweight cotton. Although I had a good experience with DecoArt So Soft paint before, it’s kind of hard to find and I wanted paint that was a bit more opaque, so I did some online searches for suggestions and decided to try Liquitex Soft Body acrylics and fabric medium. You mix them in a 1 to 1 ratio, and the fabric medium keeps the paint from cracking.

I have lots of paint left over from this project because I didn’t need that much, but I did use almost 3 four-ounce bottles of the fabric medium. To paint the blazer, I started with the back because I figured if it didn’t look good, it would be the back and people wouldn’t notice as much. I laid the blazer on a large plastic drop cloth outside because I didn’t have room in my studio to spread out a blazer. Usually when beginning a flower painting I would paint a chaos layer on the canvas as the underlayer for the flowers. But I wanted to avoid having extra paint layers on the blazer or otherwise it would be too stiff. So I just painted an underlayer in spots that I designated for flowers. Then I painted greenery around those underlayers. Here’s how it looked at this initial stage.

Notice that the under layers are orange and peach colored. The finished flowers would not be that color, but I wanted these initial colors to peek through the final color to give the flowers more depth and interest. Next, I painted the background color of the blazer. I chose a light blue, and this went over some of the greenery and the rest of the background of the blazer. (Disregard the box of pour-on resin in the picture. I used it as a paperweight because it was windy that day.)

Then I painted the actual pink flowers on top of the orange under layers. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any more photos at this point, but you get the idea. After painting the main flowers, I added smaller details, shading and highlights.

You can see it really wasn’t hard to paint on the blazer. The biggest challenge was I had to do the whole thing in small sections because I had to let the paint dry before moving on. So it took patience to get through the whole blazer. I started with the back. Then moved to the front, doing the left and right sides at the same time. Then I tackled the fronts of the sleeves and then the backs of the sleeves. Finally I finished with the lapels and the collar. Each time I started from the beginning, doing the under layers, then the greenery, the blue background, and then the pink flowers.

Oh, by the way, I put masking tape over the buttons so I wouldn’t get paint on them. I love how this turned out. If you’re wondering if it’s really stiff because of the paint, I have to be honest that it is actually a little stiff, but not so rigid that you can’t move around in it. The fabric medium does soften the paint considerably, and I can scrunch and fold the fabric endlessly and there is no cracking or anything. And when I’m wearing it, it doesn’t feel that different from a normal blazer. In fact, the more I wear it, the softer it seems to get.

I just love how it turned out. There will definitely be more painted blazers in the future for me.

Then I remembered that I had a blazer from Uniqlo I had bought on clearance that I got purposely to make over one day. Originally I thought I was going to paint on it, but because the fabric was black, fabric paint had a hard time showing up on it. (I tested it in small spots on the inside of the jacket.)

Seeing how the collar of the shirt looked like a blazer lapel, I had a brilliant idea that I didn’t know would work or not. What if I sewed the shirt over the blazer, using the blazer as the lining and the shirt as the outer fabric? First I tried on the blazer and wore the shirt over it, and lo and behold, they seemed to drape well together. I consulted my friend Camilla, who is an expert tailor, and asked if she thought she could merge the two garments together. She said she’d experiment and get back to me. A few weeks later, she presented me with this blazer. I was so happy with it. Camilla said we were really lucky that the shirt fit over the blazer almost perfectly. Now this is one of my favorite blazers of all time. See how nice it looks in my Warhol kitchen.

To paint the design, I used DecoArt SoSoft Fabric Paint, which goes on like buttah, dries quick, and doesn’t even need to be heat set. I used 5 different colors, just like the original Mondrian paintings – white, yellow, red, blue and black. I needed between 2 to 3 bottles of each paint color to cover the blazer.I originally put masking tape on the jacket to help guide my paint job, but that was a disaster because the tape would not stick to the fabric. So I just penciled in the design and painted it freehand. The hardest part was painting the black lines. I wasn’t perfect, but you know my motto: “close enough!”

I love how it turned out. When I took it to the tailor to have the buttons sewn back on (I removed most of them before painting), he thought I bought it that way. He couldn’t believe I painted it. Thanks DecoArt!

This is the back.

I even got matching shoes. Now, I did not paint these. I bought them at Zazzle! I uploaded my own Mondrian-inspired design, and they printed — and delivered — my shoes in less than 48 hours. They’re super comfortable too.

Here are the two dies I used.

I had several yards of black and white menswear fabrics in my studio – houndstooth, glen plaid, etc. — so I didn’t even need to buy any fabric. I’m not sure why I had all that fabric. But my fellow fabric hoarders out there can feel me, right? First, I ironed on some paper-backed double-sided adhesive to the wrong side of the fabric.Having the paper backing really helped the fabric go through my Sizzix Big Shot, and I made a bunch of flowers and leaves. And with the scraps I cut some curved stems that I decided I would add.Then I peeled off the paper backing and made a design on the blazer a section at a time. I played around a lot with the placement of the flowers until I was happy. I pressed down on the iron according to the package instructions of the adhesive interfacing. And I went all around the blazer, starting at the front, then the sleeves, and then the back. Part of the look of the blazer was a lot of overlapping of patterns. From far away the flowers and leaves look grey. But close up, you see all the variations.I love how the patterns and the colors of this blazer are so traditional and “serious,” but put together in such an unexpected way with the flowers, there’s so much whimsy to it. 

Here in Southern California, it does get cold in the fall and winter (anything below 60 degrees is considered freezing here), and I like to wear an overcoat when it’s cold. But most men’s overcoats are really boring. They are typically navy, grey or camel, and that’s all the choices there are. I’m a plaid-ophile, so I had been on the lookout for a plaid overcoat, to no avail. Until I found this frock coat on topman.com. Technically, it’s not an overcoat, but it’s a long coat, so no one would really know the difference. Paired with the matching pants, it’s a pretty cool look.

The best part? It was a steal. The jacket was on sale for $55, and the pants were on sale for $35. Plus, I got a 20% off discount on top of that, so the coat and pants were $71 total – no tax or shipping. For that price, I had to say, “why the frock not.”

This month, Dr. Martens, in collaboration with the Soane Museum in London, introduced a capsule collection featuring the work of artist William Hogarth, in particular his most famous piece, “A Rake’s Progress.” This series of 8 paintings illustrates the rise and fall of a ne’er-do-well who inherits money and squanders it all on gambling, drinking and women and ends up losing his mind in Bedlam. (At least he should’ve squandered all his money on shoes.)

When I saw these at the Dr. Martens store, I could not believe how beautiful and unique they were. They’re literally a walking piece of art. I doubt that Hogarth would have ever imagined that more than 200 years after he completed these paintings that they would be licensed to be reproduced on shoes. But as he was also a satirist and social critic, I think he would’ve gotten a chuckle out of the notion. 

Pants by Maison Martin Margiela for H&M. T-shirt is Heattech from Uniqlo.

I have no problems ordering clothes, even suits, online. I’ve bought numerous suits from Topman online, and they’ve been great. (I always assume I am going to the tailor to do some alternations.) So how did my first J. Crew suit fit? Let’s start with the jacket. I usually wear a 36 short. And the Ludlow 36 short fit perfectly. Even with the Topman jackets, I have to take in the sleeves. But with the Ludlow, the sleeves were perfect. And there’s a really nice taper to the jacket so it doesn’t feel boxy at all. I love it.

The pants, on the other hand, did not fit as well. I usually wear a 30″ waist. (With some stores like H&M and Uniqlo, I have to up that size.) The Ludlow pants are supposed to be trimmer, but they were huge on me. The waist was fine, but the pants were so baggy, so I just took the pants to the tailor to make the legs more fitted. They’re still not as skinny as I’d like, but my tailor really has an aversion to skinny pants.

This suit goes with a lot of shoes that I own. It looks great with my navy suede wingtips, or even my black plain toe bluchers. For this pic, I chose my teal Cole Haan wingtips. A bold suit deserves a bold pair of shoes.

Photos by Lynn Pelkey.