The Origin Of Virginie Jacket

It was meant to be a unique gift, an only one piece in the world gift, the best quality gift.

At the time, I was working on a fall-winter collection that was inspired by medival French architecture. Having spent a great deal of my time studying the collections, the inspiration naturally blends into an idea.

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Back in December 2024, I was a 20 years old fashion student living in Paris at the time, passionated with my crafts.

I was also with my ex-girlfriend, my first girlfriend, who was turning 22 on the 4th of January, and I wanted to give her a gift that was a representation of how she made me felt: grounded, strong, supported, constructed, and most of all, loved. She inspired me.

I had a navy blue cashmere coat that I always wore, so I sourced the best quality cashmere to create a coat for her that would match mine. The fabric was beige, and it reminded me of her tenderness.

During Christmas, I took the fabric with me to Bangkok, and started hand-draping it on the old mannequin I bought during 2020 lockdown. Personally, this is the best approach to create any garment because the designer is forced to use all his/her senses during the process--like a form of meditation.

However, I faced a problem as I was designing. For a small woman, a long coat like mine would make her appear extremely short. My ex was also a biker girl, so I shifted my idea: from a coat to biker jacket, keeping the inspiration.

During the late medieval and early Renaissance periods, craftsmen developed a technique called «Intarsia.»

It involves creating images or patterns by fitting together pieces of wood of different colors, grains, or shapes. Used in religious and royal spaces, it symbolized prestige, devotion, and power, as it required skill and precision to execute it perfectly.

This is the perfect technique to give structure to tender fabric such as cashmere.

The technique is extremely sustainable as it is architected from small trims of fabric like jigsaw pieces, but as I mentioned, Intarsia is considered art form, and it doesn't serve any functional purpose. It was rare to find any seamstress willing to take on such a precision challenge...but nothing was impossible.

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I flew back to Paris with the jacket folded in my luggage under the plane.

The jacket was refined, and each line and stitch were meaningfully placed. I named it "Virginie Jacket" after her.