Every coat we make begins as a sample that someone has to live in. For the Halden that someone was Ruth, who has cut our outerwear since the first season and trusts nothing she has not worn on a train platform in the rain.
She took the first sample home on a Monday. By Friday it had been to the workroom, two fittings, a school gate, a windy afternoon at Bamburgh and the back of a taxi, and it came back with a page of notes pinned to the collar.
What changed
The pockets moved up by two centimetres, because your hands should find them without looking. The collar gained a hidden tab so it can stand against the wind. The back seam was let out at the hem so the coat swings instead of clinging when you walk.
A coat is finished when you stop noticing it. That took us four samples.
Some notes we did not act on. Ruth wanted a lining; we kept the coat unlined, because double-faced wool is finished on both sides and a lining would hide the best of it. She has since admitted she was wrong.
What stayed
The cloth, a 520 gram wool woven in Huddersfield, never changed. Nor did the length, just below the knee, or the shoulder, which is cut wide enough to go over a jacket without looking borrowed.
We made 240. Each is cut one at a time, which is slower than cutting in stacks and wastes less cloth.
