Two Coquelicot Skirts (Both Views)

I made these skirts a few months ago but didn’t have the motivation to take photos of them at the time. I got seized by the urge to take photos of a recent finished make the other day, so I pulled out these skirts to document at the same time! I didn’t bother ironing them or anything, and I noticed halfway through taking photos that the navy blue skirt totally had a very big fluff on it the entire time. But finished is better than perfect, and I’m excited to be able to talk about these two skirts because I love them so much! The pattern is the Coquelicot Skirt from Wildflower Design, and it’s so interesting and cool. This blog post features one of each view, and I’ll start by showing you View B.

View B of Coquelicot is the one with aaalll the gathers. This is the view I first saw on Instagram and fell in love with. I got this big cut of navy blue cotton lawn through the fabric swap at Patch from my friend C, but it’s originally from Blackbird Fabrics. If they get this back in stock again, I would definitely purchase more – it has a lovely drape and softened up really nicely when I pre-washed and dried it. I went into the fabric swap only looking for really big cuts of fabric (4-5m) because of this pattern and a few other really voluminous ones that I’ve been very attracted to lately. This fabric is 108cm/42″ wide, and the pattern said I needed 5.25m of fabric for View B in my size (10/12). This was a 5m cut, and I found that by being careful, I was able to fit the skirt onto that yardage without having to make any changes to length! My current waist measurement (34″) falls directly into size 10/12, and it fits perfectly! In the pattern, it mentions that you can double the length of the waist ties if you want them to wrap all the way around to the front to tie, and I did that. I much prefer front ties and long tails on my bows.

The construction of the Coquelicot is what really drew me to it. It is completely magical! I’m by no means a fashion historian/historical costumer, but there’s a great video here from Shannon Makes that I highly recommend you watch to learn more about the pattern. It features a little interview with Melanie, the pattern creator, about the skirt! I’ll show you the features of the skirt below. Both views of the Coquelicot feature the same overall concept, but the way the back skirt fastens is slightly different between the two. In both views, you construct the back skirt+waistband and the front skirt+waistband+ties basically separately from each other, and then they get attached at the side seams, but only halfway. This might seems super confusing. Let me walk you through the photos below, which show me taking the skirt off.

As you can see in the first three photos, the front skirt is what you see along the waistband as the skirt is worn, with the back skirt and fastenings hiding underneath. When I untie the front waist-ties, you can lift the front skirt away from the body, but it’s still fastened along the side seams.

For View B of the Coquelicot, the back skirt attaches with laces that lay over top of a panel to keep things smooth and prevent bunching of your shirt underneath. In these photos, I’m wearing short shorts underneath so that I don’t show the internet my underwear! The laces mean that the waist is ADJUSTABLE. The pattern size chart includes a range of measurements for the waist for each size! I love this so much, because it means that you can easily adapt the skirt to changes in your body! That could be a shorter term change, like when you had a giant delicious meal, or you are having bloating from your period, or a longer term change, like weight gain for any reason. I find this so helpful, because it means that you can keep wearing the same garment throughout any body changes, and still have it be comfortable and feel great to wear.

The other unique feature of the Coquelicot is the pockets! The pockets are attached to the back skirt, and they wrap around to the front when you fasten the back skirt around your body. The shape of these pockets is very similar to tie-on pocket bags that were used historically, as you can see here. The openings are finished with a strip of bias binding, and the pockets can be accessed by slipping your hands through the gap between the front and back skirts. These pockets are so roomy, and since they’re attached to the back skirt waistband, no matter how much stuff you put in them, they don’t drag down the silhouette of the skirt. You can see in the photos below how the pockets work and how you can access them for use.

All of that brings us to View A of the Coquelicot skirt! I actually made this one first, even though View B was the one I really wanted to make. I started cutting out View B but then realized that I didn’t have enough fabric. View A doesn’t have any gathering, and only uses one pair each of the front and back skirt panels (compared to two pairs of each for View B). Luckily I realized this was going to be an issue before it was too late, and I just switched plans. Since I was cutting out the skirt panels first (I had a feeling that I might not have enough fabric), it was no problem to swap out the pieces for the waistbands as well. The front waistband and ties are the same between the views, but View A uses D-rings instead of laces to fasten the back skirt.

In the photos below, you can see the D-rings used for View A of Coquelicot. I used these ones because they were the right size and I happened to have them on hand, but I think if I was going to use the D-ring closure again, I would try to find something lighter and less clink-y. I personally prefer the lace closure, but the D-rings are definitely less fussy to put on. Since you don’t really have to take the skirt on and off during the day the way you might with pants, I would go for laces for all future versions because of how it feels while worn.

For this version, I decided not to top-stitch the waistband and ties, and instead hand-stitched it down on the inside. The two fabrics and silhouettes between the views turned out so different, and I think it’s fun to see how the same pattern can produce such different garments. The fabric for this one is an Ecovero viscose twill from Blackbird Fabrics (which I bought ages ago!), and it is soft and has much less structure than the cotton lawn used for the other skirt. I don’t think I will make View A again, because I prefer a huge gathered skirt with lots of volume, but I’ve been wearing this version way more than I thought I would so that’s a nice surprise!