Blazer Alteration – Before and After

I’m kind of obsessed with this Helmut Lang Blazer.

Photo Credit (left to right): Helmut Lang SS11, The Glamourai, Hayden Panettiere at the Rock N Reel event

It retails for around $540.  Sigh. The cheapest I’ve found it is for $329 on ebay and for $250 at the Theory outlet at Woodbury.  I MIIIIGHT have splurged on the Woodbury blazer, but they didn’t have my size!  But let me just say, seeing it in person at the outlets only fueled my obsession with this jacket and I began a mad internet search for a knock off version with nothing to show for it.  I’m so surprised that none of the discount sites are copying it yet!

So it looks like its time for another alteration project (my first apparel project since the wedding!)

I bought this blazer last Fall about a year ago back when the boyfriend blazer thing was huge. I loved it and wore it all of the time.  But after a year it has started to look boring and generic to me and I have had no interest in wearing it lately – so it seemed like the perfect candidate for an update!  I decided to transform it into my dream Helmut Lang tuxedo blazer.  Unfortunately I forgot to take before pictures, but here are some images from the Urban Outfitters website where I bought it.

The transformation was actually really simple.  Just a matter of changing the hem line and taking it in a little to make it more fitted.

And here’s the result!  It doesn’t have beautiful seam detailing that the original Helmut Lang blazer has (also, I’m definitely no model), but I think it replicates the look really well! Oh, I also wanted to note that I tucked in the pocket flaps to give it a clean slash-pocket look like the original.

It kind of scares me how much I look like my mom in this pic.