Adventures with dyeing: Boden coat

It occurred to me when I posted my last dyeing post that I think most of the people who read this are very accomplished dyers and my little machine dyeing escapades are not that adventurous, but I will keep posting about them because I am always pretty excited with how things turn out but have a terrible habit of taking a few pictures and then never sharing them anywhere. 

Such as - possibly my most successful attempt yet - the Boden coat. 

I actually blogged about buying this coat back in 2008. All summer long, I had marked extra (and this was, I believe, real paper extras) to build up the funds for a purple and purple spotty coat from Boden. It would have been my first proper coat. For some reason, I did not buy it - instead, I bought this cord version, which was machine washable and warmer and cheaper. It has been an exceptionally wearable and useful coat. There are many, many picture of me wearing it over the years. Here are my favourite things about it:

1. As stated, it is machine washable - and it has been through the machine many times. 

2. It only has four buttons but they are spaced so well that one could wear it as a garment. 

3. The third button down nips in at exactly the right point, just above my waist, to create a very flattering empire line. 

4. It is warm and, although it really isn't waterproof at all, it will absorb the rain and keep me dry. It does then need a day off to dry out, though. 

5. It has good deep pockets. 

I have a number of coats now but this is the one I kept coming back to, until I didn't. I realised a couple of years back that I never reached for it anymore and tried to think about why. It was clean and I'd resecured the buttons, but it had done that thing that navy garments do when they are washed a lot, which is that it had started to become a little brown, especially around the collar. It had gone from faded navy to really very faded and actually perhaps it is grey now navy. I might have used the word drab. Even worse, it was kind of patchy.

I did think about giving it to charity, but I thought that it might end up in the ragging pile and I really think this is the perfect coat. Boden don't make anything like it since they took that VC money and got really big - they do some cord blazers now and then but nothing you can put in a machine to wash (actually you can't even spot clean them, they are very poorly dyed, I fear to get caught in the rain in mine). So I decided I would try to revive it, based on Mr Z's old adage of 'If it's not something you're wearing anyway, you might as well try anything because you've got nothing to lose'.

I removed all the buttons and the little faux belt on the back. I said goodbye to the colour of the lining, which I realised was also going to go, though exactly how I could not be sure. I then machine dyed it - this one took three pods of navy machine dye. Sadly I forgot to include the faux back belt so I had to scrap that, but I was not overly sad because the results of the re-dye were splendid. 

Here's Lenin, inspecting it. 

When I say it is like a whole new coat...I have had many compliments, many people asking where I got it, many more wears out of something that had been sadly neglected for too many years. Here it is, hamming it up with me on the streets of Almaty a month after it was dyed:

Just a whole new lease of life! It dyed very evenly; the lining retained its pattern, if you look hard enough, and the sleeve lining stayed olive green. There is a little bunching on the inside around the hem, probably as a result of being washed and spun three times on the bounce without any shaking/smoothing, but I have taken to fidgeting with it when I'm wearing it, to work the inside seams flat again and, anyway, it's one of those things I don't think you would notice unless you were wearing it. 

I do think this is what clothes should be, right? This is going into its 18th winter. I live in a city and work in a school so my coats are not going to take a lot of abuse. I hugely appreciate something that I can clean myself and rework when it gets a bit past it. Kind of sad that Boden don't espouse those values any more.