- Today you're in for a treat.

I'll be showing you some stunning faux fur coats and wraps created by Donna Salyers.

I first met Donna in our sewing trade show days more than 20 years ago, but this visionary has said goodbye to those trade show days forever.

She converted her garage into a workspace and now sells her fabulous furs to all the big names in retail including Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman.

All about furs today on Fit 2 Stitch.

(melodic music) - [Announcer] Fit to Stich is made possible by Kai Scissors, Bennos Buttons, OC Sewing Orange County, Vogue Fabrics, Pendleton, Imitation of Life, and Clutch Nails.

I'm so excited for the show today.

We're going to do a little fashion show because one of the things that is so popular throughout time and still continues to be is fur.

Real, faux, doesn't make a difference.

We're going to do all faux furs today.

And the reason we are is because my friend, Donna Salyers, years ago started a faux fur company and I'm talking like my early trade show days were her early trade show days.

And she did these little kits and she packaged them up and, you know, she just really encouraged women.

She taught them how to sew, but they're so easy, and taught them how to do all that kind of stuff.

And so I've watched her all these years.

And so when it came time to where I really wanted to do a show involving furs, and you know, there's Fendi and those furs are 38,000 up.

I really wanted to bring it down to where we could appreciate them, afford them, and mostly understand what is current with faux furs and what are they really doing and what is the styling and how we really can make them part of our everyday lives.

So I'm going to give you a little backstory on Donna Donna, again, this is back in the seventies, Donna just grew up in a very poor family and you know it wasn't so much that it was poor as much as even if she had that amount of money it couldn't go to a coat, her ethics, her morals, it just couldn't go to a coat, but she really, really wanted one.

She had been to New York she had seen those beautiful, beautiful furs and she really decided she would treat herself to a coat.

So she saved her money, saved up her money.

And on the day she was getting ready or the week before whatever, she was getting ready to go to New York and purchase this coat she had dreamed about, she heard a story on the radio and the story we all know about Paul Harvey and what a great broadcaster he was, but it was in particular about what they were using to make furs and she listened to it.

She just could not take her money and continue that purchase.

For her, it was her choice, she decided it's just not what she could do.

And so she decided to take that money that she'd saved up and start a faux fur business and see what she could do as far as faux furs go.

She didn't know a lot about them but she just decided that that's what she wanted to do.

It was just one of those lightning bolt moments where you take a left turn and everyone is saying, go straight ahead.

But her first exposure was to Sew News magazine.

And for many of you, you know of Sew News magazine, she was on the cover.

They even did fur bikinis.

And she realized at that point because of how well they did, that they must, there must be something to this and she decided that this is where she needed to be.

So here it is, all these years later, Donna has sold to Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus.

There's many, many more.

She has her own online site, that's not the goal.

The goal is she's so willing to share her knowledge with us that I really appreciate her generosity and that's really the only thing I can call it.

We're going to go through all these coats.

We're going to tell you the lengths, what you can wear them with, how you can really make these minks, these furs, part of your everyday life, the different animals they are.

We're just going to have fun today.

So my vest, I'm going to start off with, because I have to confess because I always make what I wear on the show, but I didn't make it but Donna made it.

We decided that was almost as good but it is a gathered mink.

And the interesting thing is, is the fauxs are light enough that you can actually gather them in some cases, not in all these cases.

The other thing I want to do as we go through this is I really want to tell you the retail price that these sell for.

It's not a sales pitch, but I just have to have a comparison to what the actual real garment would sell.

And Donna is very fluent and very current with what's going on.

And so for instance, this would sell for 300 retail but if it were real, it would sell for 12,000.

So that's why we have to make these analogies so that you can really start to understand how easily and affordable these are versus the real.

And then you can also feel good about doing it.

Also, the fibers have changed over the years where the one I'm wearing is acrylic and acrylic is not as fine of a fiber, I'm going to say, as poly, but again, you know, whenever you're dealing with faux fur you're really held up to what the manufacturers are doing.

You know, the technology that they're doing but recently they've started doing a polyester and that polyester is just really a better and I'll point out the differences as we go along.

So let's first look at this graphic leopard and I love this and this is really what not just faux fur, but real fur designers are also doing, is they're really given you a chance to make it real and yet fashionable kind of at the same time.

To blend colors, to make them up a little bit.

So it duplicates an authentic yet with a touch of not.

It's got a notch color, 31 inches long.

I want to mention the lengths because this is really what you call an everyday length.

And then I want you to notice these little hooks that they have.

So on the inside of this, there's a little hook there and that hook is actually has a little hinge to it.

So you can put that up and they're called fur hooks.

They actually get buried down in.

This also is an acrylic but you can find the hoop on the other side and then you just snap it shut.

And once you snap it shut, you can be assured that that jacket's going to stay closed.

The reason they do these kinds of closures is what it will do is it'll give you an ability to wear it opened or closed and your, the options are yours.

And yet when you wear it open, you just don't see those little hooks on this side at all the little hoops, and they're very small but this would be 250 retail, 15,000 if it were real.

it's a European, European are those closures, but they are a fur hook closure.

This time we go now to a polyester and this is just, I wish you could feel this stuff, it's just amazing.

One day, we're going to make a way to feel over the TV.

This is called Bittersweet.

It is a mink.

You see there's a pocket that's hidden in there.

We're going to touch on pockets toward the end so we can show you how to do a pocket in that.

And the beautiful thing again about faux furs is literally they can be put in the washing machine and it's like washing your hair she said.

You put it in just a regular cycle.

You don't put it in the dryer.

You just take it out.

You shake it, that's it.

You wear it the next morning.

And just, she said just like your hair, on day one it might be a little fluffier.

On day five, it might need it a little bit more.

So you go back to the washing machine and you do it again but you don't have to worry about it really degrading or ruining the coat because it's polyester.

So it's so entirely durable.

This jacket would go for $200 retail but if it were real it'd go for 15,000.

So now we've got Elizabeth here and we're going to have some fun because this is called the Classic Stroller and Elizabeth doing just that.

She's having a classic stroll.

It's a Sable coat.

Again, notice the length at 37 inches which is roughly about a knee length depending on your height, but it is just beautifully done.

What I want you to notice is what we call, I'm going to have Elizabeth just turn around for just a minute, is what we call the pelt lines.

So these pelt lines are what have a tendency to duplicate on authentic coat is when it has those pelt lines.

Now that makes it a little bit interesting to sew with and we're going to show you that in a minute.

This coat would retail for 400, but because Sable is one of the most expensive furs on the market, the retail would be 40,000 if it were real.

So you can imagine for many of us if we had a $40,000 coat, I don't know for me, I'm not sure I could wear it anywhere, but I get that I'm not the person that spends 40,000 on a coat.

I understand that.

And I want to show those pockets.

Is there a pocket in there?

So notice that pocket just for a little bit.

Notice it's right in with the pelt line.

That's the way you do it.

You don't want to interrupt that pelt line to do it.

So Elizabeth, I'm going to borrow that if you don't mind, and we're going to go to the table.

There's some just beautiful things to see on this that I really want to share with you.

So if we look at the inside of the coat first off, the backside of the coat, and I've got one right here, you actually have no pelt lines.

This is probably a better example because there's nothing on here, but there's no pelt lines on the back.

So whenever you're doing and trying to sew on a coat that does have pelt lines, because it's a faux, the pet lines are only on the outside.

So if you'll come along and put your pins along the rows, and you can space them like every six inches or so, then when you flip it to the backside where those pins are is where you know to draw the line and to make the pocket.

And we can just chalk that on and again, we'll show you that a little bit later, but first what's I want to show you, is the beauty of how this hem is done.

You couldn't duplicate this exactly because they have, in the industry, what's called a blind hemmer.

And that first they sew, this is about 10 inches and it's the same lining.

The purpose of this is it actually supports the hem of this coat a little bit better.

It balances it and there's, the weight of the hem gets a little bit heavy and so to balance this, it helps hold the hem up by having this little insert.

So about 10 inches wide, it's actually sewn to the hem of the coat first, and then it's come up.

It's placed in the machine to where the fur is down and the lining is on top and that blind hemmer just comes in and finishes it off.

If you were doing this on your own, you can do this by hand.

It's no problem.

But what you'll notice is, it doesn't show on the outside of the coat.

So you have a little help in holding that hem up so that it's not so heavy but yet it doesn't show on the right side of the coat and it's just beautifully done.

Then the lining comes in and covers there as well.

You've got these swing tacks they're called.

And that way the lining, the coat is free to swing beautifully and yet it holds that lining in place.

Just gorgeous, I know I want at least one of those.

All right, so we're going to move back now to our mannequins and we're going to show you this couture poncho.

This is one of the softest furs available.

It's called a Truffle Chinchilla.

It's natures softest fur and not only that, but it's lined in a velvet.

So it's just cuddle up and stay warm time.

But I wanted to show you a few interesting things about this.

So again, manufacturers are constantly working to improve faux furs because faux furs are all the rage now and so it gives them the market and therefore it gives them the incentive to really research and do a lot of fun things.

So one of the things they're doing here is they're gathering, there's elastic shearing that's going through these panels.

So a lot of times that we as sewers we'd think, okay, well then we want to put this going up and down.

The problem is if you do that, the fur outweighs the elastic over time and it grows to where the coat gets longer.

So what you want to do is work it just this way.

So the selvage would be cross grain to where the elastic is and that way it's doable for anything that you might want to do.

What she did in this particular wrap is she actually did it on a bias.

So it still gave stability to the elastic and yet gave the interest of the other, of the other situation.

Now, keep in mind, this would retail for $200 which it just amazes me.

The retail value if it were real, again, would be 10,000.

Again throw it in the washer, throw it in the, the dryer you can do it as long as it's a low cycle, but she said it's always better if you just let it dry on its own.

Try not to rush it, let it go and it's just beautiful.

All right, so then I want to come and show you some longer furs that are available to us.

Now, keep in mind that under, for a while, faux fur was criticized that it was never the warmth of a real fur.

That's just not true anymore because just like with real fur, there's a R rating.

There's a fur R rating and that goes to the length and density of the coat itself.

And they've assigned that to faux coats as well as real furs.

So the skin itself is not what gives you the warmth.

The warmth actually comes from the density of the fur and the length of the fur.

So for instance, this is a Fox and this is a Beaver and this is warmer because the fur is longer and this would be less so because it's got a shorter fur to it.

They probably are both just as dense so that wouldn't be a factor, but the length of the coat, of the fur itself, would be a factor.

Now, also, I want to tell you that, notice with this one, the coloring that they've done to the tips of these, you know, to think that's a faux, you can see that there's a lot of work and going into something like this, it's just absolutely beautiful.

And I don't know, I would just never even know that it wasn't, it's just really, really beautiful.

So then I want to go back to this is a Persian now.

We get into our Persian Lambs and anytime we do that we could kind of have a tufted look just as if it was really real, but it also gives a chance for them to make it a little more tailored.

So because it's shorter, you can do a notch lapel.

If you've got a longer fur, to try to do a notch lapel, you really, there's really no value to that.

When you're sewing the longer fur, Donna calls it t-shirt sewing.

You're really just doing shoulder seams and side seams.

You only have a front a back and a sleeve so it's not a lot of sewing at all.

But when you get into these Persians you really can start doing a two-piece sleeve.

It's got the notch lapel, it's got the pockets.

It's actually even got buttonholes now rather than fur hooks.

So just a more tailored look, much differently.

The coat is actually made in Asia.

It would be $300 retail.

It would be 10,000 if it were real.

So just a lot of differences.

And I think the fun is, especially when you're looking at all of these different ones, you can really decide, what do I really want and what don't I really want.

I'm going to bring Elizabeth back on because we've got a coat that really needs to show itself off beautifully on.

This is on the cover of Boston Proper currently.

Now, when the show airs, it will probably not be available anymore but we still wanted you to see it.

The coat retails for $400 and if it again were real, would be about 15,000.

It's actually a bonded faux fur and a faux suede.

So just to give you that whole shearling effect exactly what it is except it's washable but probably one of the beautiful accomplishments with this jacket, this is called, when you do a shearling coat, a real shearling, it's called the spill.

And that's when you do a seam, you have a little bit that spills into the other side.

And if you notice here, there's just a real fine top stitch.

So you don't do, you don't over sew right sides together.

You overlap it, you overlap just an eighth of an inch and you make sure, and you want that spill to actually show.

And then the other feature on this, they did a little V cuff.

So instead of sewing the cuff all the way down and turning it up to make it easier to turn up, they left a little, a Little V opening and it's not cut any differently.

It's literally, if I were to still straighten this down you can see it's just not stitched.

Lovely, absolutely, thank you, Elizabeth.

So now we go into a little line of coats that she has and we call these the Luxe Line.

And the reason they're called the Luxe Line is as we've talked about, what goes into the cost of a garment?

why does it reach the price point it does?

And literally what you have to think about is the man hours that go in to creating it.

And in this particular case, again, that's exactly what happens.

You've got more seams now.

It takes on a little flare of like a swing coat where you've got more seams.

it's more fitted in through the body and then comes out toward the bottom.

You've got a little bit of flare here and of course, more stitching and more work.

This is turned back.

The coat is meant to just meet at the middle.

And then again, we've got just this time, not a little snap hook because we really want them to be buried into the faux fur, but it's just a little tiny clasp.

So again, it can be worn open or not.

It's not meant to overlap, but if you notice, and I know you can't touch it, but it's so thick and so rich.

And if you look at the back, again all of those seams and all of the seaming, it just takes a lot of time.

Don and I were talking about all of this and we were laughing because I told her that every time I've worked with faux fur, I always make sure I'm out of town in a hotel and that's when I cut it because when you initially cut a faux fur, just where you cut, where you separate it with, and you always want to cut it from the backside, they cut with a razor.

But if you don't have a razor, you want to cut from the backside because you don't want to cut through the length of the fur itself.

So you cut from the backside but immediately where you cut from it will release itself and it goes all over and because it makes such a mess I've always made a point to do it in a hotel.

I pack it all up when I sew it.

I leave a very nice tip, don't get me wrong, but it's just, it is messy and it's an issue.

She said, they're always cleaning and it's not because it's dirty.

But the thing about it is, is once you sew it, faux fur will not continue to shed.

It will not.

Once those seams are secured, nothing will come out.

The backside of this is so dense and so tight, it just is beautiful.

And it's just lovely to wear and to wash and everything else.

I wanted to show another one.

This is called, Make Me Blush.

And I just love this, this again, this is a Persian Lamb at top.

We really start to get into some fun fashion things.

And it, again, retails at $800.

These are the more Luxe ends, but the, if it again were real it would be at 30,000.

Tibetan lamb is that the hem?

You notice the little frill, I have all that kind of stuff all over my house.

The crystals are even very, very expensive.

And so we've got these little hook and ring closures.

Again, the hooks are, this time they are small, just small on the inside.

And so one of the things that you want to do in your, thank you Elizabeth, that's just beautiful, in your whole investigation of all of this is you really want to look and see and think about what do I want.

If my fur is more dense and smaller, I want smaller hooks so that I can leave the coat open without it showing it all.

You can see you can't even see mine.

I can feel them they're right here but I certainly can't see them once the coat's worn open.

So I want to talk about pockets for a little bit because I think for many of us when we wear a coat, we want a pocket.

We love throwing things in our pocket even though it's been said, a well-dressed woman never puts her hands in her pockets.

Well, maybe that's a little outdated, but anyway we love pockets.

So let's just, I did a little pocket sample here, and I want to look at how we create it and how it's done.

So first off again, this is the Sable.

Remember it had the pelt lines.

And so what we want to do is make sure we put that pocket right into the pelt line.

So if we look at that closely what we can see is we can see the fur there.

We don't actually want the pocket out of fur because when the pocket is out of fur it's just too thick and you don't want to put your hand in a furry ball.

And so what they come in, is they substitute the fur with a really soft velvet, very tactically soft but yet not as bulky and thick as that fur.

So then the pieces are cut and we've got them laid out here for you.

You're gonna cut two pocket pieces.

The shape of these pockets does not matter.

You just want them to be, you know, I would like mine a little deeper 'cause I love long deep pockets and I put everything in them.

All right, so they're going to be eight inches and then just curve them around and I'm going to cut.

You'd want two of them.

But if you notice one is narrower than the other and that's because there's a little fur strip that goes right there and if you can see, when you peek into that pocket, that's exactly what you're seeing right there is that first strip.

You don't want to see the velvet right away.

So this is done just like a welt but there's a little bit of twist onto it and I want to make sure you understand that.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to chalk, that's the easiest way is to chalk that fabric, and all I'm doing is remembering I'm following my pins that were on the front and I'm chalking between my pins, because it will not look good if that pocket's not in that pelt line.

If you're doing a fur that doesn't have those pelt lines you don't have to worry about it but you want to make sure you're there.

So here I go, I'm going to sew the first line, and I'm literally going to be, I'm going to sew the small part to the fur, these two pieces go together.

I'm going to connect these together and then I'm going to connect them to the coat.

I have to cut the fur before I sew them and I'm going to sew from the right side.

So I sew this one to that little slit, you're only taking eighth inch seam allowances.

Donna uses a slight zigzag like a two zigzag and she does it about a three millimeter stitch length.

So you can set all that.

You're going to do one here.

You're going to do one there, that's it.

You're going to push them to the inside.

And then there's just a very slight amount that you're going to connect them with, that comes to the top.

Now, what I did is I wanted to show you this in different colors other than furs just so you can kind of keep an idea.

So here's the blue is the fur.

There, you've got a little bit of an error factor because it's a fur, but it makes a beautiful pocket.

Then I did the bigger piece in a different color fabric and the smaller piece in a different color fabric.

So smaller piece fur, the bigger piece and then your fur.

And you can see that little bigger piece will stick through, the smaller piece is inside and we'll never show.

So I can tell you just with a couple of little bits of practice, you'll be outstanding and that's the goal.

So here what we want to do is get a fur coat.

Why not, we can all afford them.

They look amazing.

I think the shorter coats again, go for every day.

If you decide to make it a little longer, I think it still works every day.

The goal is just to have fun with them and really recognize that if she can do it so can you, that's what she said.

No longer a stepchild to the fashion industry, faux furs are everywhere.

Bias is the enemy of every seamstress.

Corsets are so yesteryear, but are they?

Mr. Robert Danes from New York joins us next time on Fit 2 Stitch to share his vision for bias, corsets, making muslins and so much more, join us.

(melodic music) - [Announcer] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Kai Scissors, Bennos Buttons, OC Sewing Orange County, Vogue Fabrics, Pendleton, Imitation of Life and Clutch Nails.

To order a four DVD set of Fit 2 Stitch series nine, please visit our website at fit2stitch.com.