Restoring A Vintage Jacket- An Addendum

When To Shave Your Vintage & Why?

I highly recommend finding a good audio book or podcast to listen to while doing this tedious process.

Many of you have asked me about how and why I choose a certain method for de-pilling after my last blog post “Restoring A Vintage Jacket”. You can read it HERE.

In that piece I wrote about all that went into restoring a specific late 1960s jacket to its former glory. I also outlined all the methods one can use to de-pill and the tools for each. For that specific piece I chose to use a cashmere comb (HERE is an example). As the jacket was so matted and felted, I felt the fiber could really use more of a combing out rather than simply shaving or cutting it away. I was especially afraid that had I used a shaving method, it would have left the coat with worn spots and holes. However, that left many of you with the question of when should one use the other methods - i.e. shaving with a razor or automated sweater shaver? In my opinion this greatly depends on the fabric of your vintage garment as well as its weave.

To best explain what I mean I will demonstrate what I did with one of my own coats that needed a bit of attention- a VERY chunky woven Lilli Ann.

How It Started…

My coat has seen better days…

This vintage coat is a staple this time of year and as a result it definitely shows its wear. Being busy with my shop and the products there leaves me little time to work on my own pieces. As such, it’s been a while since I have tended to this coat in the manner that it needs. But with so many questions, I thought there was no better time to demonstrate the shaving method to de-pill! This very chunky woven wool is beautiful to say the least BUT after many wears over the last few years it has - to no surprise- accumulated multiple areas of extreme fuzz and pilling as well as a few spots where the weave has been pulled out.

Step 1- Fixing The Weave

A loose piece of yarn from the weave.

The coat had a number of small strings of yarn that had been pulled out of the weave . . . mainly from my dogs paws . . . I thought it important to start with this as I did not want to accidentally cut off strands of yarn with the razor. I simply took the edges and pushed them back in with a pen top, weaving them above and below perpendicular pieces as was needed to maintain the weave. Of course, this task would have been easier with a large needle used for yarn, but unfortunately I had misplaced mine. Fortunately, because of the large and chunky nature of the yarn as well as the loose weave, this was not too difficult to fix and went pretty quickly.

Step 2- Shaving The Coat

You amass a large amount of wool from this process - I am keeping mine in case I need it to make yarn in the future for this coat.

Yes, I know shaving your vintage sounds really weird but I swear to you this method works!

Simply grab an old razor (obviously you want it to be clean) and start to lightly shave the garment. The movement and pressure should very much mimic how you would shave yourself. This method I have found actually works best with disposable razors or those that at least have a similar angle. Unfortunately, I have not found that using the more sustainable double edge safety razor works as well because it can be difficult to get the correct angle - at least for me.

So why did I choose to shave it? Well for this particular coat, shaving was optimal because of the loose weave of the wool. I was worried that if I had used a cashmere comb instead, it would only pull out pieces of the weave further, causing more loose strands of yarn and in the end ruining the look of the coat. Also, I needed to get rid of the extra fuzz that accumulated around the whole thing, not just brush the fuzz out. This was especially the case around areas of more sever wear like the underarms and where my purse always rubs at my hip. Of course, you need to determine if your coat is supposed to be fuzzy or not. There are many coats with a Mohair look that is actually meant to be super fuzzy. In such cases combing or simply brushing your coat is a much better method - you can find such a brush HERE.

I am sure that a sweater shaver (see one HERE) would have worked just as well for my coat. However I am not the most sure handed individual and as such don’t trust myself to not cause holes in my own garments because I generally apply too much pressure. I usually always use the razor method instead.

*Please note that the razor and sweater shaving method also work really well for fabrics that you don’t want to comb, especially where the weave of fabric is really tight and fine. A great example is the underarms of a favorite t-shirt! Though always be careful as you don’t want to remove too much fabric and get a hole!! I do not recommend this on anything like silk - though true silk shouldn’t pill anyway.

The End Result

And Voila!

After many passes with the razor - and many hours- the coat was finally completed! The before and after image only does it so much justice. In person the change is astounding - the coat has significantly less fuzzing and pilling. After all the time spent shaving, the coat looks much more crisp and significantly less worn. My hard work paid off!

Be sure to read the first “Restoring a Vintage Jacket” HERE to better understand the whole process as well as when a cashmere comb is a better option.