Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) vest pattern.

[PropDad]

So we recently made a Gene Wilder Willy Wonka outfit for me. The hardest part I found to replicate (as many others probably have too) is the glorious vest that he wore. I am doubting that there is any material identical to it out there. Here is the next best thing (IMO).
picture courtesy of BeatDownBoogie.

I found a high res photo someone had taken of the vest at an auction. I was able to see a spot in the pattern where it repeated. The area was then cropped and made into a repeating rectangle that could be used to print. Did some color and brightness correction as the original picture looked to be in low light. Here is a comparison.


Now that we have had it for a few months, we thought we would share the pattern on Spoonflower. Hope this helps others who have ran in to this problem.

BONUS
We had enough vest material left over that we decided to make a "fun" cosplay. Check out my Willy-Won Kanobi!!



We used crushed purple velvet for the robe, the tie material for the lining of the tunic, and a belt that matches the color of the hat.

 

[suffecool]

Ah, you make me sad, PropDad. If only your awesome custom vest pattern had been uploaded to Spoonflower earlier last year! At the time I made my Wonka vest, the only pattern available was the one created by "pseudolus" http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/539623. That pattern was "okay", but it didn't edge-match very well when the pattern was repeated. After seeing your fine work, I would have rather used yours instead. Plus, yours had the nice silver-coloured ivy vine and leaves. Oh well.

I wound up embroidering the silver ivy vine by hand with a machine, and will eventually hand paint the leaves with silver glitter paint. Here's what mine turned out to look like (but note that the gimp edge trim border has not yet been sewn to the jacket, as I ran out of time before DragonCon):



Appreciate your effort in making the vest pattern available for all to use! Original Wonka is the best Wonka!

 

[hbw60]

I really love both of these! I wish there were more classics like this on the boards. It seems a lot harder to find reference photos and sources, so it's always impressive to see them replicated so well.

 

[The-Clayster]

Hey guys!

This pattern is fantastic! What kind of fabric best captures the pattern? There are several options from what I saw.

As for the actual pattern to follow for sewing, what did you guys use? And for the coat? Is the simplicity pattern pretty accurate?

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm all fired up to get my Wonka done!

 

[suffecool]

Sorry for the delayed response. For the vest, I personally used a Butterick 3721 Men's Victorian Vest/Jacket pattern. It comes in two sizes (S/M and L/XL). I used the L/XL version, and specifically used the Large measurements for my costume. Here is a link to the pattern you want: https://www.etsy.com/listing/188834477/butterick-3721-mens-victorian-costume

The vest needed some modifications to the collar in order to make it more like the Gene Wilder version. My seamstress did those changes by eye, using various film screen grabs as reference. She also made some mods to the jacket as well, making it closer to the Wilder version. Since I didn't plan to ever button the jacket, we didn't create button holes for the jacket.

I used Organic Cotton Sateen for the vest fabric at SpoonFlower, as I wanted the vest to have a bit of a sheen to it.

Good luck with your costume!