Lawrence Jacket: Production Update No.6

On the 29th of April 2023, after 4 years, 3 months and 6 days of development, our first jacket went on sale.

It took just 34 hours, 24 minutes and 16 seconds to sell out.

Given that each jacket is hand crafted in limited numbers, the process of getting from order through to delivery isn’t always plain sailing. That said, it’s incredibly important to me that our customers are kept fully informed and up to date throughout production.

Rather than keep everything behind closed doors, what follows is the sixth full production update email that was sent out to our first customers.

First off, I'm sorry for the lack of recent updates. I've been waiting a couple of weeks to get my hands on the lining but now that I've collected it, it's all systems go!

When you're cutting and sewing a single jacket, as I have been for each of the prototypes, there's a significant amount of fabric wastage. Now, you'll know from my previous emails that I'm keen to reduce that as much as possible.

As with most projects, it's the preparation and set up that takes the most time and the Lawrence is no exception. 

Last week was spent taking all the pattern pieces for each of the 50 jackets and laying them out to be as efficient as possible - this is known as a 'marker' in trade talk.

The Lawrence jacket marker

You can see in the image above that a pair of XXL epaulettes are squeezed into a space amongst a whole bunch of XL pattern pieces. Elsewhere, you'll find a couple of Small collars next to a Large back section.

Getting the marker right is important from a sustainability perspective but also because I have exactly 100m of gabardine to work with, 50 jackets to make and each one requires an average of 2 metres to complete.

The more efficiently laid out the pattern pieces are, the more wiggle room we have.

Cutting and slicing

Once the marker was sorted, the next step was to lay out the fabric on the cutting table and get handy with the rotary fabric cutter. 

Given that there are 72 different pieces to make each jacket, this is one of the most time consuming parts. 

As of today, the ribbed cuffing and the interfacing for the cuffs, collars and epaulettes have all been cut and work has started on the main pieces of gabardine.

So things are well under way and I'm dropping by the studio every week to capture as much as possible so I should have more frequent updates from this point forward.

Cuffs and collar interfacing all cut up and ready to go.

In the last email, I mentioned that our BMW K100 had been displayed at the Bike Shed Show in London.

Shane Benson took some fantastic shots of it in place that Jonathan and I have shared on Instagram here.

I'm headed to the Malle Mile this Saturday. The bike will be on display again although unfortunately it's still not quite finished. Jonathan had to rebuild the clutch from scratch so we're hoping to have it done in time to get it up into the Peak District for a run before the end of the summer. 

If you're headed over to the Mile - let me know, it'd be great to meet up!

Photo: Shane Benson

As always, I'm here if you have any questions or would like to catch up. 

Thanks!

Mark Warman
Founder