Fabric & Styling Inspo for the Mitchell Trousers

Our latest pattern, the Mitchell Trousers are inspired by the musical legend and style icon Joni Mitchell. Her trademark menswear looks and timeless elegance were what we were looking at for ideas when making our samples and so we have put together some fabric ideas to get you inspired as well! There are two views with these trousers, the tapered or wide leg and we tried a variety of weights and textures for the models' samples. The pattern calls for sturdy woven fabrics like light to midweight denim, twill and canvas, and midweight linen, cotton, and wool suiting. However, a softer effect can be achieved with midweight fabrics with drape, such as Tencel twill, wool crepe, or silk noil. Let's look at some options!

WOOLS & JACQUARDS

For our model Sheila, we used a beautiful deadstock Glen Plaid wool suiting. For a simple men's tailoring hack to lining a wool version, all you need to do is cut a second pants front in lining fabric (but only to the knee.) From there you would use pinking shears to trim the bottom of the lining piece, baste to your pants' front, and treat the whole thing as one from there on out. Easy!

TEXTURED COTTON 

Judging by your response, the version of these trousers we made, in our Honey textured cotton, was the pair to beat! We sold out of pretty much every colour we had of the textured cotton but we just restocked them, so grab them before they go again!

COTTON CANVAS 

Although we didn't end up making a pair for a model Heather made the tapered version in the marshmallow canvas above (more on that later) and they turned out great! If you are using heavier fabrics for Mitchell you could make the waist-facing and pocket facings out of something more lightweight to reduce bulk. Cotton or flannel is soft and easy to work with.

DENIM

For Mitchell, we recommend using very lightweight to medium-weight non-stretch denim. Sheila's pair in the darker denim is actually a shirting fabric and the cream pair (in recycled denim) for Trudy is 10.5 oz. Perfect for an architectural pleat like this one. 

MID-WEIGHT TWILL

Our Japanese midweight cotton twill is the perfect fabric for a project like Mitchell. Heather made herself a pair in the army green and we are all green with envy (sorry). Crisp but with plenty of heft these would be great office wear that would last forever.

So? Which are you gonna try first? Tell us in the comments.