LAT 18 "rally jacket" project
Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 2:37 am
A couple of years back i managed to acquire an original LAT 18 "rally jacket". These were the jackets offered by dealers in the USA as part of the LAT options. Funnily enough despite it being a Medium size it was to small for me (i gather americans must have got MUCH bigger in the last 45 years?) I could fit into it but it was like a T-shirt. The jacket also has 2 owner placed patches (1 US navy and another some dog owners club) which i have kept on it but may now remove.
Anyway I started doing some research into the jackets. The jackets were made in California by a company that did many sporting teams/college/club jackets and the LAT jacket was a variation on that. They used a poplin fabric (its like a cotton canvas) and talon zips. they also had 2 stripes down the front in a quite textured vertical grain ribbon in black and orange.
Not wanting to cut up the original jacket to get a pattern i started searching out a larger jacket by the same manufacturer. After about 3 months i picked one up in the internet in japan.. it was a medium as well but at least i could pull it part to have a pattern made for a larger size.
After mucking around trying to get a close match on the fabric and source talon brand zips I found materials that were close enough to what i needed.
A tailor was finally convinced to grade the pattern and make a reproduction of the jacket. They were not happy about the "old style" detilaing and the fact "nobody makes the jackets like that anymore" and "why not tailor it".. but i wanted it as close as possible to the correct item..
so here we are almost 2.5 years later.. I still need to make the front LAT patch but its almost complete!
original jacket:
repro jacket:
Anyway I started doing some research into the jackets. The jackets were made in California by a company that did many sporting teams/college/club jackets and the LAT jacket was a variation on that. They used a poplin fabric (its like a cotton canvas) and talon zips. they also had 2 stripes down the front in a quite textured vertical grain ribbon in black and orange.
Not wanting to cut up the original jacket to get a pattern i started searching out a larger jacket by the same manufacturer. After about 3 months i picked one up in the internet in japan.. it was a medium as well but at least i could pull it part to have a pattern made for a larger size.
After mucking around trying to get a close match on the fabric and source talon brand zips I found materials that were close enough to what i needed.
A tailor was finally convinced to grade the pattern and make a reproduction of the jacket. They were not happy about the "old style" detilaing and the fact "nobody makes the jackets like that anymore" and "why not tailor it".. but i wanted it as close as possible to the correct item..
so here we are almost 2.5 years later.. I still need to make the front LAT patch but its almost complete!
original jacket:
repro jacket: