A Devilish Dandy
Crowleys 1827 Outfit
First and foremost: I have been a little bit obsessed with the Amazon Prime show “Good Omens” lately. I think that goes without saying but around christmas I found a lovely little discord-nook that took this obsession to a whole other level. I've never really been into cosplay before. Sure, I've recreated one or the other movie character for the odd halloween party, but that's it. But – I have been very deep down the historical costuming rabbit hole for years now. For me, that means basically anything between the mid 1700s and ww1. So naturally I am excited with any minisode that falls into this, my „area of expertise“. I believe some day somebody asked on the discord server if someone else was recreating Aziraphales multilayered Inverness coat – that's when I thought to myself: Wait a minute, you could totally do a cosplay. I love the outfits of the Edinburgh minisode. Crowleys even more than Aziraphales. This could be fun. 1827 could be fun. Early Biedermeier. A historical period I actually haven’t dabbled in that much before. So why not recreate a costume that has a whole added-up screen time of roughly 30 minutes, pretty much all of them shot entirely in the dark? Some of the layers aren't even visible at all. On this note, let me give huge thanks to PillowPrincipality over on discord for peering over grainy dark screenshots with me to find out exactly how the collar of an almost invisible tailcoat might be constructed.
What I want to say is – maybe I went a little overboard, but I really enjoyed diving head first into some men's fashion tailoring. Certainly not my area of expertise. To recreate Crowleys outfit in the flashback minisode of season 2 episode 2, I sewed: A dark grey men's shirt, A red silk waistcoat, a black tailcoat and of course the iconic long black overcoat. I planned on making the pants as well – I do have pattern and fabrics ready – but as this was intended to be an entry for the „Good Omens got true talents“ competition by Sendarya over on youtube I ran out of time for these. I still plan on adding them in the future, but for now I need a little break.
If you have somehow found your way here but have no idea what I am talking about - here is a handy little pinterest board I used to put together a bunch of reference pictures of the original costume I was going to rectreate.
A Red Slik Waistcoat
In the show, all you can see of Crowleys 1827 waistcoat is a bit of collar and the very bottom row of buttons peeking out from under the tailcoat. Given this very limited information I turned to the history to try and figure out what exactly he might wear underneath all that black. I settled on one of these doublebreasted waistlength vests with a high standing collar.
To create a pattern for this waistcoat I turned to one of the two attemps at mens fashion I've made before. A couple of years ago I created a 1770s ensemble for my boyfriend. Since that waistcoat did fit me quite well I decided to just take it as a base and change up the front to match the reference pictures I could find. ( Even tough1770s is probably quite far away from 1827 cut-wise).
With the mockup and fit done so far, I now had to make a hard decision: How far overboard do I actually want to go with this? I mean realistically the waistcoat won't even be visible in it's entirety. I could get away with halfassing this but I guess, at heart, I am a perfectionist and so I found myself padstitching horsehair canvas to the beautiful red silk the next moment. And of course, now that I was all in once again, I also had to do the buttonholes by hand (I actually do quite enjoy those; they are a very relaxing thing to do while listening to music with lovely internet people on an otherwise teribble monday evening).
I changed the overlap to turn this into a doublebreasted waistcoat; figuring out the lapel situation took me about 3 mockups. The main fashion fabric I used is a red silk jaquard with a very subtle geometrical pattern. For the back, as seen on historical examples, I just used one layer of lining fabric.
The last thing I added to the waistcoat was the little standing collar, that technically isn't visible in the show but all images of historical waistcoats from the era I came across did feature this. So I figured this little detail would pull the waistcoat together.
The one pair of buttons visible on all the screenshots appear to be black so I decided to cover some plain buttons in the black wool fabric that I had lying around in my stash. To do that without a fabric-button-kit, simply cut out a circle of fabric about twice the diameter of your plain button. Then add a gathering stitch about 5mm away from the edge, which you then pull tight around the button. To tighten everything up, the thread is then run across the bulky fabric in the back. This also gives you some mass to sew the button onto the garment later.
The Tailcoat
Recreating the third layer of the outfit definetly involved the most headscratching and peering over very grainy dark reference pictures. In the show, there is exactly one scene where we can even see the tailcoat „in its entirety“ - I put that in quotes because sadly for my costuming heart the main focus of said scene is on Aziraphale, not Crowley. Nevertheless while enjoying a drink at Mr. Dalrymple's we can actually see that the garment is in fact a doublebreasted tailcoat, featuring some button details on the pointed lapel. The coat closes only with one button and is a bit shorter in the front than the red waistcoat.
Finding a fitting fabric for this was a challenge all on its own. In the end I settled on a cotton-polyester blend brocade – if not an exact pattern match, it was the closest I could find. For the lapels I picked a lovely cotton velveteen.
As for the pattern – once again I could go back to a pattern I used before: The 1830s Tailcoat by Black Snail Patterns. I used this many years ago to create my very first piece of men's fashion. Not for me but for my boyfriend. Said coat does have a lot of flaws and also doesn't quite fit me and there are a few things that are visibly different in Crowleys tailcoat:
the lapels are pointier (and also feature some decorative metal buttons)
the coat only closes with one button not with four as the Black Snail pattern one
the upper collar – figuring out exactly how this thing is supposed to look involved a lot of peering over dark images and frankly guesswork (thanks again to PillowPrincipality over at the discord server for doing some magic with those pixels and interpreting them with me)
After a few rounds of mockups I cut out the fabric and as with the waistcoat went on to the next thing: Adding in the horsehair canvas, padstitching the lapels and finging myself all in all doing a lot more handsewing than I had anticipated. While I'm at that – why not add in the lining the historical way as well? (Tbh I also am way more confident with this method – sewing the lining by hand using felling stitches – than making any modern bag-lining attempts)
To finish off the lapels I decided also to add the outer black velveteen by hand as instructed in the Black Snail pattern I was using as a rough guide. Honestly, I am not a 100% happy with how the edges turned out though. Despite horsehair canvas and the tailoring tape at the edges the edge of the lapel looks somewhat bubbly and uneven. After adding the buttons it's not as noticeable but still a very minor detail that bugs me.
Having completed the body of the garment it was now time to face every sewists nightmare: The sleeves. One reason I enjoy a good waistcoat – no sleeves. But a tailcoat needs sleeves and long ones at that. I decided not to use the pattern sleeves as a base because I remember having to alter them quite a bit even for my boyfriends coat way back when. Instead I turned to my handy pattern briefcase and grabbed my favourite, very well fitting, slightly-puffy sleeve pattern. This one I originally created for a 1906 gown but it has come to use in my everyday wardrobe sewing-shenanigans multiple times. Only drawback: It is a short sleeve pattern. In order to adapt this for the tailcoat I added the lower bit, giving a slight curve to the pattern pieces as seen in most historical sleeve patterns. And while we're at it, added some width to the pattern as well – this needs to have enough room to fit the very bulky sleeves of the linen shirt after all.
The sleeves of the tailcoat are not lined and finished of with a simple hem. I decided not to add any cuffs since a) I was running out of time and b) this would only add more bulk to fit into the overcoat sleeves.
Last but not least I added a single handsewn buttonhole and attatched these lovely metal buttons I found online.
The OverCoat
Out of all of the garments that make up this outfit the long overcoat has to be the most recognisable, easiest to reference and also the piece that will most likely end up in my everyday wardrobe. For this I used a plain wool cloth twill and again the cotton velveteen for the accents on the lapel and pocket flaps. The 10 purely decorative buttons I covered with fabric to match them as close as possible to the suit.
Rather than looking for a base pattern and manipulating that to get as close as possible to the reference pictures, I decided to draft/drape this pattern from scratch. To do this I dressed up my sewing manequin and basically covered it in masking tape to then draw on a first rough pattern. Three mockups later I ended up with a pattern that followed the lines of crowleys coat as best as I could tell from the very dark images available. Especially the back took some time since I could only find one single reasonably-good-quality source image. (We don’t see Crowley from the back in this outfit in the show. So I had to scouer the internet for some making-off pictures)
We know the procedure by now – next thing to do was adding the horsehair canvas, a bit more pad stitching and fighting the velveteen to create the lapels. After that I joined the side patterns and added in a very important feature for this to become actually usable in everyday life: The pockets. (I always hate making these but every time I skipped them I came to regret it later).
After that it was once again time for the sleeves. For these I took the pattern created for the tailcoat and simply scaled them up a bit. On the one hand to accomodate for the other layers underneath the coat and on the other hand to give a bit more “poof” to the shoulder. To finish them off I then once again wrestled the slippery velveteen under my sewing machine and created cuffs that I then attached by hand.
Next the upper collar was added. To create a pattern for this I turned to the before mentioned Black Snail Tailcoat pattern since that collar did look quite similar just not as “dramatic”. I sized up the undercollar quite a bit and once again went on to pad stitching. Just like the tailcoat, the lining of the overcoat was completely sewn in by hand using felling stitches. (And yes, I did underestimate how long that would take for a full coat)
Bonus: A Simple Grey Shirt
To be honest, in the show you can't see even a tiny edge of this particular layer peeking out anywhere, but Crowley has to be wearing something underneath all the coats. Historically this thing would have been a simple shirt made of white linen. Since I do dabble in making costumes for musical theatre from time to time, at this point I've probably made a dozen of these shirts using this free pattern by marquise. But of course, the shirts in my closet are all white and Crowley wouldn't wear white right? So naturally, I ordered some black (turned out grey, but good enough) linen to make a new one.
This type is basically made up entirely of rectangles. For the construction I followed the aforementioned guide given by marquise. I did however change the measurements given for the patternpieces to not end up with a dress. And since I do plan on adding this shirt to my everyday wardrobe I made one „unhistorical“ change to the shirt construction and added some simple snaps to close up the sleeves at the wrist. I have done this before on shirts for theatre and it just makes putting them on and off all by yourself so much easier when you don't have to fiddle with a real button using only one hand.
To close the shirt at the neck I added one last handsewn buttonhole and a fabric covered button.
All in all this project took me the better part of two months. I decided I wanted to do this in early January. Well, decided is a tough word. I played with the thought and a week later I just happened to find myself having ordered all the fabrics. After quite a long break from historical sewing in general, I dove in head first once again and I am glad I did. Thanks a lot to the wonderful people over at Sendaryas Good Omens Discord Server. I am very happy to have found this little parallel world that inspired me to take on a big sewing project once again. And I don’t think this will be my last venture into men’s fashion.
