I found this jacket at a resale shop sometime in the 1990s, and was quite taken with it — probably because of all the zippers! Underarm, side, neck — zips everywhere you look! Also, the low-key color-blocking, largely in my favorite blues, was a bonus.
Photo of a 1990s teal, purple and black color-blocked
Columbia jacket with a newly-added pocket hidden
under the central purple flap.
But I´ve worn it a lot less than I´d hoped, because there´s no convenient pocket for small essentials — like a wallet or phone. Disappointingly, that decorative flap on the front is just that: decorative. There´s no pocket underneath. Who knows why not?
It looks as if it would have been a lot more bother to construct the jacket like this than to simply put a pocket in. And, strangely, the inner lining under the placket is kind of a mess, making the choice to avoid a pocket a little more mysterious.
Photo of the open space beneath the unstitched purple
flap on a vintage jacket. The black nylon jacket lining
is visible behind the hole. The flap is turned up, and has
been lined with black nylon.
When I removed the topstitching on the flap, I discovered that it just lay over a gap in the jacket. The jacket itself is fully lined; you can see the black jacket lining behind the gap.
I forgot to take a photo before I lined the outer flap; in this photo, I´ve already backed the main fabric flap with black nylon.
In general, I didn´t take as many photos as I should have, so this one is of the pocket insert, already made up.
Photo of a black nylon pocket insert with a zipper attached
at the top, and a triangular flap designed to fill the
newly-opened gap in the main fabric of the jacket.
The top of the pocket insert needed a triangle of its own, since the gap in the main jacket fabric had to be covered. I added this extra bit of fabric to the lower zipper seam, on top of the pocket itself.
Photo of a black nylon pocket insert in place on a teal
vintage Columbia jacket. A French-English paperback
edition of a Sherlock Holmes book is partly inserted
into the pocket.
I attached the pocket several ways. First, I hand-stitched that triangular patch over the opening in the jacket, and then I attached the top edge of the pocket to the lower edge of the newly-liberated jacket flap.
This closed the gap in the jacket, and secured the pocket in place, and re-did the top-stitching on the purple flap.
Photo of the exterior of the teal jacket into which a
new pocket has been inserted. The zippered pocket
opening is hidden under the purple flap. A small black
zipper pull extends to the left, though usually it is hidden
under the flap, too.
The flap fits neatly over the new pocket, leaving the jacket looking much as it did in the first place. I´m kind of wondering, if, in use, the pocket may pull down a little bit so that it shows beneath the flap, but we´ll see. If it does, I´ll add a hidden snap to keep it in place.
That little dot to the left is a zipper tab, for easier grabbing to open the zipper. (It´s usually hidden under the flap.) Highly recommended for smaller, hard to grip zippers!