The ‘Silver Scream’ vest; featuring Creatures of the Universal Studios Classic Monsters line up.

Greetings my Friends and welcome to my first entry in the Vestival Work I have done as a part of my COVID-19 quarantine craft projects!!

Quick introduction to this particular part of this leg of my patch work crafting – this is one of four vests/jackets I worked on from Hot Topic. Each have their own color, some have removable arms, some are just straight up denim vests.

Each have their own theme, season that they are attached to, and their own flair and approach. Some are really elaborate, and some are very elegant in approach. Each patch is hand stitched on and carefully chosen for each jacket.

So the cruel ‘Bite’ of Winter started off as almost not happening; I was on the fence about doing a fourth and final vest at the point I came onto it. Hot Topic was offering a deep discount on the vest and I kept coming back to it (not counting Facebook ads, me just not stop thinking about it). I have ALWAYS been a fan of the Universal Studios Classic Monsters of the Silver era of film; I have Frankenstein’s monster on every articles and naturally who could forget Monster Squad?

While I was still on the fence, Creepy Company sweetened my Cauldron by offering a deep discount on their site on patches; 50% and there was a Bela Lugosi patch that I was NOT going to pass on!! I checked my craft budget and it was just enough to pull off for about $50. SO I pulled all the triggers.

So the standing theme is naturally, ‘Silver Scream’ and it would involve Universal Studio classic Monsters on an black backed, acid washed vest from Hot Topic.

It has this great ‘mist/fog’ atmospheric feel to it but also a bit of a Silver wash feel at the same time that really helped bring this particular project together. I mostly used black upholstery thread from Coats and Clark, with the exception of Gillman, which I used clear polyester thread to not throw his appearance!!

Deucalion (Frankenstein’s Monster), his Bride, and Mothman were all purchased from Hot Topic, whereas the Chomping Teeth are from Creepy Co and their branding symbol.

I reserve the upper left breast area of my jackets and vests as a point of definition and designation and felt that the Fanged Teeth to be quite appropriate for such a venture. I ALMOST bought a Monster Squad patch for the jacket but decided to nod the original material. I’m that film geek.

Honestly this may be one of my best vests and jackets I’ve ever done because the patches just CAME together very naturally. I had to dig around a little bit to get all the pieces but it was WORTH IT. The flow is very clean and does a very good nod to Monster Squad without falling into it. Maybe at some point I’ll cave and put it’s patch on the middle back under the hood but we’ll see.

These four almost need no introduction but I’ll throw it out to honor them. Naturally we have this MASSIVE Bela Lugosi as Dracula center patch that is just stunning (so many pins to hold him in – I don’t iron on anyways but he has no iron on back, it’s assumed he will be stitched on.) The Mummy and Gillman flank Deucalion with such solid symmetry I am I kinda surprised they weren’t SOLD that way. But hey, if I can make it work on my end, I’m all for it!

Oh the stories to tell on these patches!!

So when I was putting this vest together, it was one of the reasons I DIDN’T go Monster Squad directly because it would limit me on what patches I could go with and keep the theme. They unfortunately only made one movie so I stepped back into the source material to spread my options open and focused on Classic Horror. My previous partner, Jen, was very much into Classic Horror concepts and that interest has been rekindled with my friend Rob so I went hunting for options!

The Phantom of the Opera was almost a given, as well as the Invisible Man – The Phantom was located on Etsy and The Invisible Man on Amazon of all places. The Black Cat is also from Hot Topic or Monsterologists, whether you want to get them from the source or from their vendor. The Wolf Man is from Ebay and was mailed out from Cali so he was the LAST to show up but holy crap I love how The Black Cat and the The Wolf Man use their shading and placement so fricking well!!

NOW TO ADDRESS THE MONSTER IN THE ROOM. Now if you are a hardcore Classic Horror film buff, there is very much a stranger in the fold. Mothman is most certainly not a classic; The Mothman Chronicles starring Richard Gere and likely a myriad of supernatural small screen series have featured this Cryptid but he’s not formally a classic monster.

But I have a soft spot for this strange, fuzzy bastard and it’s a running bit with my wife who loves Mothman so here he is. ❤ That and his coloring and shading totally makes it look like he’s a 50’s era film monster so fuck brother, it’s done.

I chose this particular vest for Winter as it is chilling (both conceptually and lacking sleeves) and the acid wash looks almost like bleak winter nights where every single, violent, bone chilling sound, just carries for yards across an open field as a pair of luminescent eyes pierce the gloom… right into your soul. You keep up on cardio right? Good shoes? Good, you should, ah, get a head start. JUST. RUN.

ANYWHO. SO here’s my project for the first vest of the vestival set, I can’t wait to show you the rest!!

LOVE, D.