Denim Saddle Bag
As I’ve mentioned MANY times before, fashion from 2000-2008 really holds a very special space in my heart. One of the main reasons is the fact that John Galliano was holding the reigns at one of the biggest luxury design houses on the planet…………….. Christian Dior. To say that during his time at the helm of Dior was the golden era of couture, innovation and spectacle would be an understatement. Galliano was never afraid to grab hold of a concept and ruuuuuunnnnn with it, which is one thing I adore the most about this designer, and Dior kept providing to let him work his magic for so long. He created so many legendary collections and just as many (if not more) iconic accessories during his time at Dior. The saddle bag (introduced in 1999) was one of the most recognised bags of the 2000’s and for me, the denim version was the ultimate! Although he created many memorable bags for the brand such as the Jamaican themed and pink Oblique, the denim stood out a mile off. It was the ultimate in high and low brow. Back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s you couldn’t get into many bars and clubs wearing jeans. Even the door people working at Harrods would stop people coming in with overly ripped jeans. OOOOOOOOH how times have changed. So to see a high-end designer piece made from denim that would have cost a month’s wage was groundbreaking. To me, this was the turning point in society where you could wear whatever you liked to go out in. The denim saddle bag paved the way for the smart-casual way of dressing. I am soooo thankful for this as I would have died if I had to wear a pair of smart trousers every time I wanted to go out. The first time I went out (underaged) drinking with friends would have been in the summer of 2003, we would have been 17 and I remember I met them straight after work when I used to work the 4-8 pm late on a Thursday evening haha. I can almost guarantee which pair of jeans I wore and they would have been an extreme flared mid-wash pair from H&M that I used to wear all the time with a brown buffalo skin pair of Miu Miu shoes that I had saved up for weeks to buy. I think we all owe Monsier Galliano for this huge shift in society!!!! In 2011 when Galliano was sacked from Dior for his slurs in a Parisian cafe, my heart sank. When you find out your idol can think in such a way it hits you hard. I by no way agree with what he did and I do think he deserved to get the boot from the company, but in my eyes this does not effect what he did in the past and the masterpieces and era he helped to create.
Inspired by the likes of the ever so tasteful Paris Hilton in 2003, I decided to make my own version of one of these iconic bags and here is what I used to do so;
An old pair of jeans (or scraps from a few pairs)
2 sets of magnetic bag fasteners
3 D-rings
Golden polyester thread
Iron-on interfacing
The first thing I needed to do was to source a pattern for the bag. I found a black mock croc version on Nasty Gal for £9 so I snapped it up. I Intended to take it apart for the pattern pieces but when the bag arrived I actually really liked it and wanted to keep it haha. So that I was able to keep the bag, I decided to simply trace the pieces onto pattern paper. I don’t know why I thought taking a shop-bought bag apart would have been an easy job as this version was made pretty well. Once I had traced all the pattern pieces I then tidied them up, squared off the edges and added a 1cm seam allowance to each piece.
From looking at the shop-bought bag, I easily got a good idea of how I was going to assemble the pieces together. Before I could do that I got an old pair of jeans, ripped them along the outward seam to flatten them and placed each piece of the pattern on the jeans to see what would fit where. I did this for a LONG time then it suddenly hit me that it doesn’t matter, I can easily stitch pieces of denim together and make it look a little more patchwork and it would add to the overall finished look. While placing the pattern on the jeans I really wanted the bag to look like an actual pair of jeans so I made sure I included pockets and rivets. I also wanted to be able to use the pockets from the jeans too, so I included the back pocket on the rear of the bag and the front pocket underneath the front flap. Once the pieces were cut out I then cut out the same pattern pieces in a grey iron-on interfacing. This takes some time to do but doing it right the first time will save you a lot of effort later on!
I wanted to add white satin flanged piping to the edges of the bag (as it can hide a multitude of mistakes haha and makes it look neater) so I stitched this to the outer edge of the pieces just to keep it in place. I started with the flap as I needed to get the piping and the lining attached so I could do the black panel. The interfacing really helped the bag keep its shape and meant that I didn’t have to do any topstitching to flatten the seams. The flap lining is the only piece that needs stitching to the denim panel as the lining for the main part of the bag is put together last. Stitching the piping was probably the most stressful part of the construction as I wanted it to look as neat and tidy as possible since the bag is so small and any mistakes would be really obvious. Because the piping was quite small too I was able to stitch VERY close to it using the sideless foot on my sewing machine.
I mentioned the patchwork look because I made 2 pretty big mistakes when cutting out the pattern pieces. I cut them out the wrong way but easily fixed the issue by adding another piece of denim offcut to extend a piece of fabric and it wasn’t a huge problem. Yeah, I would have rather not had to deal with it, but it was fixed quickly enough and the best part is NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW it wasn’t supposed to be like that LOL! Well, until now anyway.
For the two hanging details, I cut a length of denim fabric as long as I could with a width of 4.5cm. At 1 cm from each side I folded over and topstitched on the machine to hide the raw edges. I then folded over each end and hemmed them. I added a golden D-ring into the one that hangs straight down. I then stitched them to the centre of the front panel at the top. I used the leftover of these hanging bits to attach the D-rings to the side for the handle. I pinned this to the top opening of the bag at the top of the side panels ready to stitch them into place. To finish off the opening of the bag I pinned the flanged piping to the opening edge and baste stitched it into place ready for the lining.
Once the outer shell was finished I was able to start stitching the lining pieces together. I did this the exact same way I did with the outer shell making sure to leave around 15cm of the lining seam open so I can turn the bag the right way out. Once the pieces were together I turned the outer shell inside out and placed the lining pieces inside the shell, right sides together and pinned it into place by matching seams. To attach the lining I did a straight stitch 1 cm from the top, right up to the edge of the piping.
TAAAA-DAAAA and its finished!!! I decided to add a patch to the bag to break up all of the blue denim. I have a load of these patches for different places in the States and I have been saving this one because it was is for Anaheim; the city which Disneyland is located in. I have loads including Hollywood, Miami Beach, San Fransico, The Grand Canyon, Key West and they are so cute. I have been dying to put the Anaheim patch on something and this was the perfect opportunity. I do not doubt that I will remove and add it to another patched creation soon enough LOL. I managed to find these vintage Disneyland badges on eBay and I wanted to include them on the bag too.
Sunglasses - Versace
Neck Tie - Keith Haring x Pull and Bear
Necklace - Etsy
T-shirt - Baltic
Belt - Moschino
Jeans - Moschino x H&M
Bracelet - Moschino
Shoes - YSL Rive Gauche
Rings - New Look and Topman