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.

The thing about grey heather fabric is that even when it’s in the shape of a blazer, it still looks like a sweatshirt. So it was time to play “Project Runway” and make it work. Here is the finished look:

I’ve had these fabric samples that I used for the Menswear Apartment makeover I did a while back, and I’ve been saving them because they’re such cool fabrics. I have pinstripes, houndstooth, and even fabric with martini and cosmopolitan recipes. Hello! They should not be hiding in a storage closet. So I finally decided to put them to work embellishing my blazer.

I decided I’d embellish the collar, lapels and pockets, but I knew there was no way I was going to sew the fabric on them. Hurray for fabric glue! I used Beacon Adhesive’s Fabri-Tac. For the collar and lapels, I cut pieces of fabric that were bigger than I needed, glued them to the blazer, and then trimmed the excess. That was way easier than cutting pieces to the exact size. 

I started with the collar first, and then did the lapels. I did not bother finishing the edges. I wanted a deconstructed look. (That’s what they say on Project Runway when they don’t have time to sew.)

For the pockets I cut the fabric pieces so they were just slightly smaller. Then I cut out some fusible web the same size and ironed the fabric onto the pockets. I could have glued the pockets too, but the fusible web gave me better adhesive coverage for this larger area. 

And look at the fun surprise in the back.