If you find our Bianca a bit too on the slouchy side here are two hacks to help

Our Bianca Coat is a much loved wardrobe staple and is generally an oversized garment. It has a dropped shoulder to make it a generous fit over the shoulders. 

However, we fully appreciate that some people are not overly comfortable with such an amount of ease in their clothes, so this is a really easy way to make your Bianca smaller across the shoulders so you don’t feel swamped. 

Bianca Hack 1

Just a heads (or rather hands up)  – you will need an extra pair of hands to help you with this as the alterations are taken out through the back, and unless you have octopus arms you may struggle on your own!

First try on your Bianca and have a friend lift it onto the shoulders where you’d feel comfortable with the shoulder seams sitting. This will create a fold of extra fabric through the centre back. 

Have your friend pinch out the fold across the shoulder blades and and up into the collar. Pin it either with normal dressmaking pins or a safety pins. 

Take off the Bianca and measure how much has been pleated out across the back and up into the collar and make a note of this. Take out the pins.

Turn your Bianca inside out and fold along the centre back. Measure in from the fold how much had been pleated out of the back and mark with chalk or a fabric marker. Take this all the way up into the collar too. This will be your stitching line. 

Add on a 1.5cm seam allowance to the new stitching line all the way up the centre back and into the collar. Cut off the excess fabric. Cut all the way up the centre back and into the collar. 

Unpick about 1”/3cm of overlocking on the neck seam each side of the new centre back. 

With the wrong sides together overlock or machine sew down the collar section only. 

With the right sides together overlock or machine sew down the coat section only. 

Re- sew or overlock across the opening in the back neck seam.  This will give you a centre back seam, but a much better fitting coat!

Bianca Hack 2

If you find the front waterfall too much for you, it’s easy to trim down the collar and front edge. 

Try on your Bianca coat and decide how much you want to trim off the front waterfall. It may be that you don’t want the collar so high or not so much in the double breasted crossover, or even a combination of both. Fold under or mark how much you want to take off.

Turn the Bianca inside out and put one sleeve into the other. This will allow the coat to sit flatter folded in half. 

Lay out the front of the Bianca so you can see the whole of the collar and front edge. Make sure both edges are level and matched up at the top and bottom corners. 

Mark on where you would like the new edge to be with chalk or a marker pen. Use a ruler to get the lines straight as the collar and front edge are supposed to be at right angles. 

Trim off the excess fabric. You can leave the edge raw or finish with overlocking or any other method you choose. 

This will give a more pared down waterfall at the centre front. 

I hope these hacks will help you to make the most of our wonderful Bianca coat for the cooler months to come.

Happy Sewing!