#banyan robe

[theshiningbeacon]

Tutorial for my OFMD Breakup™/Bird Robe

Disclaimer: I’m not a professional sewer or costumer, so any weird methods of execution are entirely due to my own (mis)adventures in sewing. Also all of the links for the fabric and research are in the replies bc I have no idea if tumblr is still ~suppressing~ posts with links.

The basic design for my Breakup Robe™ was based on heathervanderstitch and  hannahgreenecostumes‘s instagram posts (two of the costume designers on OFMD) who said that their bird robe was a modified 1940′s kimono pattern with a box pleat in the back to give more movement at the bottom without being too baggy at the top. So I took that info and essentially worked backwards by comparing screenshots from the show and a bunch of online kimono patterns. (The most helpful ones were Ralph Pink’s free Satchi kimono pattern and The Tailoress’s Giselle Kimono). 

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I found a helpful starting place for pattern piece sizes was a twitter post from another fan (fiftyfathomkinit), however I ended up making my own modifications because I found her drafting slightly confusing (she includes armhole cutouts in her back panel which i could never figure out). I also adjusted the sizing to better fit my own measurements and I added an extra seam on the sleeves so one side of the pattern wouldn’t be upside down.

On a personal note, don’t be afraid of making mistakes! I didn’t realize I needed to adjust the pattern measurements until after I’d started making the lining - which was an oopsie on my part and could have saved me a little bit of money on fabric for my lining. You can get around this error by making a mockup in cheap fabric, or you can do it like me and start off with larger pieces and make them smaller as you adjust to your own fit.

Speaking of the lining, the original robe has a fuchsia dupioni (coarse) silk lining and a hand dyed, block printed 100% cotton velvet outer shell. I found the velvet from (I believe) the same seller on Etsy. It’s a little pricey, but they also have a regular cotton version for those who want a cheaper option. 

For the lining, I wanted silk to match the original, bc it breathes better than polyester satin, and I believe it’s longer lasting. But I wanted something softer than the dupioni, so I went with... literally the smoothest silk in the closest colour I could find at a local fabric store. (I literally just rubbed my fingers against every fuchsia silk they had). But you can go with whatever lining you’ll be most comfortable with (satin, cotton, etc). 

I got tassels from that same fabric store and the thread and orange bias tape from Fabricland, but you can make your own tassels with yarn if you prefer.

I bought 5 yards of the bird velvet (bc they don’t do half yards) and 4.5 metres (5 yards) of the silk. I ended up using most of the silk and about 4.5 yards of the velvet.

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I started by making my own patterns from some super cheap brown wrapping paper with gridlines on the back, which I got from the dollar store. You could also probably just measure and cut your fabric directly, but having paper patterns made me feel better.

Your own measurements will vary (I’m 5′7″ and 120 lbs), but I wanted it to be quite oversized, with the sleeve shoulder seam hitting a little ways down my arm, and the overall length sitting just above my ankles, the same way it does in the show robe.

You can see in the above graphic I have a neck opening cut into the front panel that ends halfway down - this is how long I’m also making my collar. (Pro tip - cut the collar longer than you think you’ll need). Meanwhile, the sleeves have an 11″ x 1″ diagonal cut on the sides that will be attached to the main body of the robe, as used in a lot of kimonos.

Here are my pieces cut out (minus the sleeve diagonal bc I forgot to do it while I was cutting everything - but that was a very easy error to correct later):

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For the inverted box pleat, based on screenshots and insta posts, I went with 3″ on either side of the centre point and guestimated that it ended a little lower than the armpit. So mine ended about 10″-11″ from the top of the back panel.

I basted some stitches along the three points (centre back, 3″ to the right and 3″ to left, so it was easier to keep both sides equal). Then I pulled the two sides of the fabric together so they met in the middle at the centre point of the back panel. I pinned them together, stitched the sides together by hand with a ladder stitch, and then machine stitched a line across the top of the panel at my ½” seam allowance.

I then machine stitched the sides together down the middle with a really small zigzag stitch to make sure it was extra secure.

I cut a 1″ x 7″ inch neck dip after doing the box pleat, which is probably not the proper way to do it, but it worked out for me!

I didn’t take a picture of it, but this graphic is an approximation of how you’d go about it:

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To sew the actual robe, it requires very simple straight line sewing to connect all these rectangles. 

Firstly, you’ll want to attach the front panels to the back panel at the shoulders (right sides together).

Next, you’ll want to sew across the top of the sleeve panels (right sides together). Make sure you’re matching the diagonal sleeve indents so that when you open up the sleeve panels, it looks like this:

Then you’ll open up your robe body so the right side is facing up:

You’ll then attach the sewn sleeves to the front panels (right sides together), ensuring you’re matching the sleeve seam with the shoulder seam. Make sure you’re sewing the side of the sleeves with the diagonal cutout so when the garment is flipped right side out, the diagonal is next to your body. You’ll sew from the marked line to the marked line.

Next, you’ll want to sew the sides of the robe together to close it. However, this was a tricky part for me, because I had tried to sew the body and sleeves at the same time when I was doing my lining, but the armpits ended up bunched and slightly twisted around. So I tried getting around this issue by stopping about 1″ from the armpits, leaving a gap, while sewing the sides together. (You’ll close this gap at the very end of your project).

For the collar, attach both pieces together at one end, right sides together, to ensure the pattern isn’t upside down on one side. Once done, the right sides of the attached fabric should look like this:

Then, take the collar and fold lengthwise so the right sides are together. Sew a straight line across the two bottom ends. Then, flip the collar inside out so the wrong sides of the fabric are together and the bottom edges are nicely hemmed. It should look (more or less) like this:

(Ignore the weird cuts on the bottom right and left hand corners  - this was my first attempt with a collar that I realized was too short. [Pro tip - cut the collar pieces way longer than you’ll think you’ll need!] I forgot to take a pic of my second attempt, but you get the general idea of what it’s supposed to look like).

For the bias tape, this is probably not the proper way to go about it, but it was the only way my CFS brain could figure it out and it worked for me! (As the disclaimer said, I’m not a professional sewer - I’m more concerned with whether something works than whether it’s the 100% professional method of execution).

So, take your bias tape, open it up, and pin one edge against the raw edge of your collar. Sew these together a little bit lower than your seam allowance (1). Then you’ll want to fold the bias tape up so both edges are facing the sewn edge of your collar. Then pin and sew your collar, bias tape side down, to your robe (2). (When doing so, make sure to match the seam at the back of the neck on the collar with the middle of the back panel).

This way, when you attach the collar using your seam allowance, you’ll still be able to see a small amount of the bias tape peaking through around the collar when it lays flat against you, like so:

For the bias tape on the sleeves, I attached one edge of the bias tape to the right side of the fabric, stopping an inch past the 9″ marking on both sides of the sleeve. (I sewed this about 1/4″ from the edge).

I then flipped each sleeve inside out (right sides together) and sewed it together, stopping about 1/2″-1″ away from the armpit (as previously mentioned) and at the 9″ measurement on the opposite side. For the side with the bias tap, I flipped the bottom part of the tape over onto the wrong side of the fabric and sewed it down as I was sewing the entire sleeve.

At this point, if you flip the entire robe inside out so the right side is facing outwards, it should look like this:

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For the lining, follow the same steps as you did for the velvet (minus the collar). But when you do the box pleat, make sure the inverted side (the side you pull together) is on the wrong side of the fabric. 

Once the lining is fully constructed, you’ll want to attach the lining to the velvet, right sides to right sides, along the collar and centre front.

Once you’ve sewn the lining and velvet together, flip your robe inside out so both right sides are showing. 

As you can probably see in the photo, I already started the next step. Which is hemming the bottom of the robe. I’d recommend doing so while it’s hanging (either on a hanger, dress form, or another person), to ensure you don’t have any weird spots where the lining is pulling up on the velvet. I attached the lining and velvet by hand stitching.

For the sleeves, I folded the bias tape down onto the wrong side of the fabric, folded the lining under itself to make a nice little hem, and sewed both together. I did so by hand with a really simple stitch. (As with the bottom hem, make sure you’re only picking up the bias tape and lining so you don’t poke through to the other side).

Then for the final touch - the tassels! Mine came with a large loop that I had to remove. I cut it off and then encased the shorn ends in hot glue to ensure the entire thing didn’t somehow unravel. 

I let the glue harden and then attached the tassels by hand to the corners of the sleeves and collar.

Now we’ll finally close those ~1″ gaps under the armpits. I did this with a very simple hand stitch, making sure I grabbed a bit of fabric from each side of the fold and pulled the thread taught.

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And voila, you should now be the proud owner of the infamous breakup/bird/wrap robe.

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And that’s it! Hopefully this all makes sense and if anyone has any questions either send me an ask or add a reply to this post and I’ll do my best to answer! 

On one final note, not to be That Person™, but this took quite a lot of work (both the robe and this post) and I’m a chronically ill freelancer who’s income was hit hard by COVID. So if anyone wants to throw some change at my KO-FI if you found this helpful, I’d be very much appreciated.

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Oil painting, 1881, French.

Painted by John Singer Sargent.

Portraying Samuel Jean de Pozzi in a red robe de chambre.

Hammer Museum.

[womans-armor-workshop]

Please join me in welcoming for his regional debut the brigand of Barbados, the cream of the Caribbean, the Gentleman Pirate!

Or my take on the famous Stede Bonnet's costume. With a corset, of course.

[torturedpoetemotions]

Wait no I'm losing it all over again when Ed is going down the stairs after dumping his leathers there's a little flash of leg. Man is so naked under that banyan.

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Man's banyan, 1760.

[llbeadbazaar]

A little depression robe to keep us company during our stay in the gravy basket. 💖

[perkynurples]

mockup for the breakup banyan coming along swimmingly (ha!) so far! only the sleeves and some hemming left. could have taken more care to line up the pattern in the collar, but again, mockup. the near invisible pockets I'm very proud of on the other hand. bonus, adventures in box pleating going great:

at least I'm bending pins, not needles

[ezekiellsplayground]

Ok, so there is something really funky going on with the neck and shoulders. But my brain is fried because it’s the end of the year so I’m finding it hard to work out what to edit. I’m going to set this aside to figure out in the new year school holiday period, possibly also after I acquire a tailors mannikin.

[weabooii]

Sleep a Way Out!

Thoughts/ some explanations below the cut

It's a little disappointing to me that even though Zero abducts everyone in 999 at night, none of them seem to be in their pj's. So this is what I imagine their pj's (or in some cases, clothes worn around the house) would look like.

(left to right)

Ace's boxer fit is purely vibes based. He just seems like that kinda guy.

Lotus: I tried to bring some of her girl boss energy into her pj's. I imagine she wraps her hair in silk so it doesn't get messed up at night.

Clover just seems like she would chill in an oversized cutesy onesie.

Snake: My historical fashion obsession rears its head. He's wearing a Banyan, which is a European gown/lounge wear from the 1700s based on the Kimono and possibly other Indian robes if I recall correctly. The flower on its sleeve is a Chinese Lantern plant. He's holding a chamber candle stick as well. His cap is just based on stereotypical goofy historical pjs, just for fun.

Junpei: I couldn't bring myself to remove what I saw as some of the most iconic parts of Junpei's original design so I just remixed them. Instead of a flannel shirt he's wearing flannel pajama pants and instead of "bisexual sneakers" he's wearing one bisexual slipper (the other one got lost). I was originally intending to give him a generic college or baseball tee but while I was replaying through Ai the Somnium files I spotted the 999 reference by Sunfish Pocket and thought it would be fun to give him an old Lemniscate shirt instead.

June: She has to be wearing purple. Her fashion sense seems to be very natural, with a lot of knitting and textile ornamentation which lead me to think she'd probably wear a nice, simple cotton nightgown. And the bunny slippers are a little nod to her backstory.

Santa: You know, I just get the impression that Santa sleeps in the same clothes he wears in the game. And with a build like that he's definitely getting enough sun to have some embarrassing tan-lines.

Seven: Again, kinda like Santa, I get the feeling his pajamas could be the same clothes he wears in the game. But the shower sandals are a must.

Guy 9: There just wasn't enough for me to go off of for him. So I deleted him :) Sorry. He blew up.

[history-of-fashion]

ab. 1760 Man's banyan (informal robe) (Spitalfields (London), England)

silk damask (figured silk in the style of Anna Maria Garthwaite)

(Royal Ontario Museum)

[outofgreysmind]

BlackBonnet OTP Challenge 2- Cuddling somewhere. I think both of them probably have bad days from time to time, but also that they're both good about being there to help each other through them. I rather like how this one turned out; I'm currently using it as my phone lockscreen because I'm absolutely the kind of gigantic dork that enjoys getting to admire my own art.

The chaise lounge is based off one I own, although shaped backwards to fit the composition of the image. Ed's robe/banyan is intended to be the one he wore the morning after Calypso's birthday.

[captain-flint]

i’m rewatching ep 10 and suffering instant brain damage bc i took a second to really look around the captain’s cabin after ed came back from the privateering academy without stede and it is a heartbreaking FEAST (honestly the continuity in this show.. chef’s kiss)

the scene is fairly dark but most things lying around the room seem recognizable, like stede’s blue jacket that he was arrested in that is now a pile of blue silk on the floor next to a chaise longue (something stede would probably have nightmares about) and stede’s yellow robe (i think!) draped over the couch that also has a bed pillow on it which could mean ed slept on it, curled up and wearing the robe or more likely covered with it (same as in the bathtub scene). moving on, because i can’t linger on that thought or i’ll disintegrate into tears, ed obviously brought his old leather outfit back from the academy and you can see parts of it discarded on the floor/tiny chair as if he either dumped it out of the bag, or more likely tried to put it back on and then decided against it seeing as it didn’t fit him anymore, littering the clothes around as he took them off again

a real kicker, though, is the bed and the garment on it. it’s bright blue silk mixed in with the sheets that are rumpled as if the bed had been slept in, pillows arranged in a way as if someone was hugging them. we know from ep9 that the entire room was clean and tidy before they left (meaning the bed was too), so unless izzy had been sleeping in it (very unlikely), that mess has to be ed’s. it’s literal confirmation that he slept in stede’s bed crying into the many pillows on it and hugging silky covers/clothes and i for one am losing my mind about it

once ed goes on a cleaning spree you can see the bed is neatly made with blue silk folded on top (and his leather jacket has upgraded from floor to chair)

(and it’s so tidy like he really enjoys folding stuff and i find that breathtakingly endearing)

anyway, back to my previous point about ed ditching his old leather, his grey pants and white shirt that he got from the academy (continuity!) are thrown over the ottoman next to what appears to be his purple shirt and the discarded leather and black shirt (on the floor). those are the only clothes that we know he owns and both options were clearly a no before he decided on some random 18th century version of sweatpants (that i still wonder who the owner of is because it’s clearly not stede) and stede’s red flower banyan

and lastly (as presented in the 2 pictures above) there is an ungodly amount of discarded marmalade jars all around the room. or what i assume are jars but some could also be big white candles, but let’s go with all of them being marmalade jars because we know stede had unlimited amounts of it and it was one of the first things he’d shared with ed so of course ed would fixate on it to soothe his broken heart, it’s quite literally the sweetest memory of stede and my man was drowning in it

IN CONCLUSION, i’m feeling deranged about all of it. thank you for listening!

[torturedpoetemotions]

Okay so the fabric for the break-up robe arrived! And at first I was kinda let down because it felt really rough and not nice at all. But then I let it sit for a day and it kinda fluffed up and softened a bit? I guess it was too compressed during shipping and just needed some time to loosen up.

The color is also really beautiful and vibrant, 100% exactly like it looks in the show. It still smelled kinda strongly of dye though so I had to wash it, and let me tell you, hand-washing and line-drying five yards of velvet is no small feat. Probably gonna have to lightly steam it once it dries to get the pile to fluff back up a bit.

Anyway, there are a few rough patches near the edges but I think I bought enough that it won’t matter when I’m making the final garment. Definitely gonna need to line the robe though because that’s the roughest cotton backing I’ve ever felt, and I’m not willing to risk the colors to try any of the softening methods I know.

Gonna be hell to hand-sew this thing but I never learned how to use a sewing machine and also I don’t have one, so.

[omgthatdress]

Banyan

1780s

The Maryland Center for History and Culture

"Red silk banyan owned and worn by Solomon Etting (1764-1847). Banyans, the loose robes or dressing gowns men wore informally in their homes, reveal the influences from the Middle East and Far East in the Western World. Constructed from luxurious imported fabrics, such as hand-painted India chintzes and Chinese silks, these robes symbolized a man’s worldliness and connections to foreign lands. Such a visual proclamation from Etting’s own banyan coincides with his career as a merchant involved in the Baltimore East India Trading Company."

[fashionsfromhistory]

Dress

c.1850

Made of Chinese patterned silk, this dress uses an export textile in a Western garment. Arguably, Asian textiles were associated in the Western mind as much with private leisure as with ceremony. Many Eastern textiles entered Western dress first as intimate boudoir and other at-home garments such as robes and banyans, suggesting the qualities of exoticism and erotic mystery associated with far-off lands. The selvage at the back waist reveals Chinese characters, indicating the textile's manufacture, and the flaring sleeves are what the West calls the pagoda style.

The MET

[forpiratereasons]

good morning today ed woke up to sunshine and an empty side of the bed next to him, but these days that emptiness was a comfort. ed stretched into it, scratched a little at his belly and at his cheeks, digging his fingers in where the beard was filling out. itchy. he’d have to see about a better oil for it when they got to port. 

he rolled out of bed. skipped the leather trousers; put on a pair of soft, loose trousers that were maybe his, maybe weren’t. slipped on the linen shirt that had been tossed over the back of the chaise - not his, he could tell by the scent trapped in the collar - and a jade green banyan as he made his way out the door, and the sky had been blue, so blue, and so wide, and the water had been so crisp in the air, salt-fresh and shining, and ed had stopped on deck for a moment just to breathe. 

morning, captain, a voice called to him, and ed had looked up, and there stede had been, halfway up the main mast, clinging to the ropes like he’d been born to them. even from the deck, ed could see his smile. 

morning, captain, ed had called back, grinning, all affection, and if the crew had griped and groaned at the display, they both ignored them. come down here that i might receive the morning’s report. 

can’t very well go climbing in your good robe, stede agreed, and he was down the mast in half a moment, landing with an ostentatious flair that was entirely unnecessary and not nearly as cool as he thought it was, which just made ed’s chest ache with fondness. morning report, sir. 

and what’s the news, sailor? ed had said, reaching for him. stede came, tucking his arms underneath the banyan to hold ed by the waist. 

news is good, stede had said dutifully. weather’s clear. water’s calm. tortuga is only a day or two away, if buttons is to be believed. buttons was always to be believed. 

mm. what else? 

and stede had smiled, bright and delighted, and leaned in to kiss ed soundly. mm, he’d said when he pulled away, pretend-thoughtful. harder to say on the last. may i -? 

certainly, ed had said, pretend-magnanimous, and he’d let stede kiss him again, and again, and again, not entirely appropriate for above-board displays but hell, they weren’t pirates so they could practice their fucking restraint. 

outlook’s good, stede finally says, almost giddy, with one last kiss to the corner of ed’s mouth. i think, my darling captain, it’s going to be a beautiful day. 

it was.