“Heated Rivalry” fans have been clamoring for the white sherpa jacket Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) wears during the 2014 Sochi Olympics episode. After an online petition asking for the jacket to be made available as official merch (the movement was called #releasethefleece), the jacket is now indeed about to be manufactured by the company Province of Canada in cooperation with the Heated Rivalry producers.
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!
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