Will the Real Ralph Rucci Please Stand Up? - Part 2

After talking to some people about this jacket, I quickly realized that few people were actually aware of Ralph Rucci. Check out this Kent State University Museum Exhibition for a taste of his amazing garments.

I will continue talking about my Rucci-inspired jacket. For anyone that needs to catch up, see the first post.

Design Prep: The jacket pattern I choose to use has a straight front opening with cut on facings. I wanted the appliques to relate to each other across the front opening and since there are no closures (buttons, etc), it made this much easier.

I decided to knock off the applique design from the runway picture of the Rucci suit. I had tried drawing a few original designs of my own, but in the end I really wanted his design. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! You can see in my drawing (at right) that I shaded in different sections to represent the different fabrics that would be used.

Since portions of the appliques would overlap each other, I redrew the design with all the lines included (see photo at left). Each individually coloured section (marked with letters) was then traced again onto another sheet of paper, ready to be laid on the prepared fabrics.

Fabric Prep: The jacket centre front was fused with interfacing to provide a stable backing for the appliques. Interfacing was also block fused to each applique fabric. Each section of the design was pinned to the appropriate fabric and two (or four, depending on the section of the design) mirror image pieces were cut out. Since the fabric had been block fused, the cut out applique pieces had crisp, fray-free edges for the remainder of the construction process.

Up Next: Applique placement and application, as well as final project photos.