Breeches

"Well! I'm actually feeling rather good about this. I think we all arrived at a very special place eh?" ~ Jack Sparrow

Jack's pants are “fall” or drop front, knee breeches which are long enough to extend just to below his knees and include four buttons and a buckle at the bottom of each leg. Their color is always a source of debate; most say that they are light gray pants with a touch of brown, while mutineers claim that they are light brown with a touch of gray. Jack's breeches are roughly from the 18th century.

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Fabricating

• Longago has several authentic period patterns.

• Here is another authentic 18th Century pattern for breeches.

• JP Ryan Pattern for breeches

• Harriet'sColonial Patterns.

• Here are instructions for making a pair of breeches.

• Also check your local fabric store and look for patterns by Simplicity, Mcalls or Butterick.

• Here is some distressing costuming advice.

• Here are some instructions for applying patina to your buttons.

Commandeering

• Sara Fay Tailoring

• Jas Townsend & Son Inc

• Blackbear Historical Clothing (use at own risk, they can be slow to ship and rarely answer emails)

• Empire World-Wide

• Yordreem Creations

• Costume Base

Breeches Tutorial

Tutorial by Mojo from brethrencourt.net

Breeches Tutorial (part trex)

I think out of all the costume pieces, the breeches have given me the most pain. Primarily because I started with the Costume Base blue (seen below)

When I started way back when, CB didn't make the pants in brown (and they told me they had no plans to) but since then they have issued the pants in a brown color. With my blue pair, I have pretty much tried everything from dying, to painting, to staining, to washing to weathering and they have been every color under the sun - EXCEPT the right color. Sometime soon, I will be buying the brown pair.... cause I hate my green/gray pants. (ugh)

Jack's true color not only looks different from film to film (gray in DMC and moving more towards brown by OST) but costumers also bicker about what that "true color" actually is. So the best thing to do is to grab one picture as a reference that you want to replicate and copy that color only. The more photos you get, the more confused you'll be.

If you have a pair of breeches, take the advice from a fellow Jack costumer:

1. remove the blue color using rit color remover

2. redye the pants using a combination of 2 pearl gray dry packets and 1/2 a packet of tan (stovetop method)

3. hope for the best

These are the CostumeBase brown and grey breeches side by side with the screen used costume (indoors)

I tell you, the breaches have been the bane of my existence. These are absolutely the one item that has given me the most grief. My first pair was dark navy blue and went through a million color changes (never exact) as I stripped and redyed them. My second pair, was a size "M" from Costume Base, but it probably would have only fit a very skinny girl with no hips, like we're talking a 12 or 13 year old. The rise on them was too short and I could not pull the waistband over my hips.

Thankfully CB agreed to mail me a size "L" (and items from Singapore don't ship quickly) and this pair was MUCH too big. A drastic increase from their size Medium. The pant legs go to half my calf and the waistband was inches too large. So, I decided to wash them and see how much they would shrink. This is what I got after one wash:

You can see from this picture where they hit me on the calf, about how far they go up my waist and here is a close up of how much room I have in the waist:

and again from the side:

 

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