DIY: Moschino Cheap & Chic Graffiti Trench
Do It With: a trench coat, a can of spray paint, newspapers, scissors/needle/thread (for removing and reattaching buttons) and a WELL-VENTILATED AREA.
Do It Why? This month’s Teen Vogue had the audacity to feature a perfect-for-Spring-08, girly-but-kooky-and-therefore-fantastic “graffiti trench” by Moschino Cheap & Chic and NOT list the price next to it. As any avid magazine reader knows, this essentially equals “price upon request,” which always leads me to try to guess as high a number as I can think of POSSIBLY paying for it with my own money. Now multipy THAT number by six and I think we’ve about got our price tag. Which is kind of stupid when you realize you can revamp your old trench to the exact same effect in about 15 minutes + drying time…
Will the house that is Moschino Cheap & Chic be way effing pissed? I actually think WE have a right to be mad at THEM on this one. You cannot spraypaint on something and charge over a thousand dollars for it. Or maybe you can. Whatever. Either way, I imagine they’re all way busy rolling around in money and stuff and they won’t even notice that we’ve ripped them off.
Difficulty Level: On a scale of 1-5, this is a .5. No sweat.
Cost: My can of spraypaint was right around $4.50 at Adams Morgan Hardware (an aside: while I wholeheartedly support buying locally, local-to-me just didn’t have the color selection I hoped for. Apparently, though, Logan Hardware carries spraypaint, so it’s that or next time I find myself in proximity to a Home Depot I’ll duck in for some acid pink or yellow to put on top of the orange I ended up with…) and the trench coat I thrifted awhile ago for $10. Altogether, this project will set you back about $15.
Tips: I asked the very SPRAY PAINT-KNOWLEDGEABLE artist Kelly Towles for some helpful hints on this one, and he proved a wealth of information (as I knew he would). For instance, did you know that hand-washing (in warm water) and air-drying will relieve your coat of the spray-paint smell when you’re finished? Or, even better, avoid the chemical smell completely with Krylon H20 (a more eco-friendly latex spraypaint available locally) or Plutonium G (available online here) - IT’S LEMON SCENTED. Thanks Kelly!
DO IT, YOUNG THINGS:
1. Start by removing all the buttons from your coat and setting them aside FOR LATER USE.
2. I was going to recommend taping off the sections of the coat that you’ll be spraypainting, but honestly I think the charm of the coat lies in its INEXACTNESS. So instead, draw yourself a little picture on a little piece of paper of where you’ll be making your marks. You’ll want to make sure you’re hitting the collar, those front shoulder flaps (my coat didn’t have them, so I FAKED IT), the pockets, and the hem with big thick lines, as well as each front buttonhole with a BIG FAT DOT. Head outside with your trench, newspapers, buttons and paint.
3. Lay out your newspapers, then lay your trench down flat (with the lining towards the ground) on top of them. Using your DETAILED MAP from step 2, start painting in shifts. I started with a section of the hem and the buttons and came back after about ten minutes of drying time to do the rest of the hem and the buttonholes. After that dried I flipped the coat over and tackled the collar and the shoulders. I then blasted my buttons with another coat of paint and left the whole kit to dry for about 15 minutes. YOU can do that in any order you choose. AND feel free to improvise or spray anything you feel like spraying - I pulled the wrist straps out of my coat and made those orange as well.
4. Once you’ve cleaned up your MESS and gotten everything back inside, reattach all your buttons. AND SCENE.
It wasn’t created, it was recreated. It was recreated to show people that paying $1000 for an item you can create yourself for $15 is stupid.
January 10, 2008 at 12:17 pmTHE RANDOM CAPITOL LETTERS.
KIND OF ANNOYING.
January 10, 2008 at 1:07 pmi wrote a song about that coat
like to hear it, here it go
“that coat is real ugly
looks like a hooker picked it out”
Like OMG! “Teen” Vogue didn’t put the price tag next to it, my allowance is only a grand a week, like OMG! I’m so DIY!
L.A.M.E
January 10, 2008 at 2:11 pmWow. Seriously?
January 10, 2008 at 2:27 pmWell that was completely uncalled for.
January 10, 2008 at 3:07 pmI LOVE YOU UGLY DIY HOOKER COAT. SHIT IS HOT.
January 10, 2008 at 4:06 pmi love this column but i personally dont like ths particular diy. i will however keep reading and continue to be inspired by your projects.
January 10, 2008 at 4:24 pmjust for the record
my comment was not to send any ill will Morgan’s way
i still dig her work and writing
i just think Moschino’s trench is fugly to begin with
January 10, 2008 at 5:49 pmmorgan’s anything but ugly.
January 10, 2008 at 8:36 pmThe original jacket was ugly.
The DIY yourself version is worse.
Sorry.
re: way effing mad
fashion prints and designs are protected by copyright law “…to the extent that, such design incorporates pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of, the utilitarian aspects of the article.” famous case - gwen stefani v. forever 21.
January 11, 2008 at 6:17 pmMorgan, you better be wearing your fucking trench tonight.
January 11, 2008 at 6:36 pmnot to be dispensing legal advice here
but DIY isn’t exactly a commercial use of a copyright
like Forever 21 was of Gwen Stefani’s clothing designs
as a derivative, non-profit use of Moschino’s design, Morgan’s DIY might qualify as educational use?
furthermore, she has a protectable copyright in the new individual, unique, original expression of her version of the jacket, it’s different materials and different form of assembly in a fixed tangible form
just like when two people take a picture of a city skyline, they both have protectable copyright interests in their pictures, b/c even though they captured the same thing, the way they did it and the equipment they did it with, makes for different and thus original expressions in a fixed, tangible form
discuss
January 14, 2008 at 10:49 amI’m new here, just wanted to say hello and introduce myself.
August 14, 2008 at 6:06 am
the is possibly the dumbest thing ever created in this column.
January 10, 2008 at 11:57 am