How to make a sew-on duffle coat toggle closure - tutorial

Duffle coats are all the rage, back from 1970 (and 1990s, and... well, they ARE practical and men love their casual sporty air). Today I am going to show you how to make a complete sew-on closure for a duffle coat, using toggle buttons and leather. We will also need some leather straps or similar.

First you need to decide on the shape of the leather pads. They may be square (that's the easiest to cut) or triangular and rounded on the corners. This is my favourite, though I prefer elongated triangles personally, like those you can see in the pictures above. If you are not inspired to design your own shape, you can use the measurement from the picture below to trace them onto your leather.

Boot buttons

Nowadays, most footwear is designed to fasten with Velcros, zippers and snaps, some have shoelaces, and some even have parts made of elastic to minimise the fuss with fastening and unfastening. But in the olden days, especially women's boots had a row tiny buttons on metal loop shanks. They were popular until 1940s, when other closure systems became more widespread.

The boot buttons above are quite a luxury compared to most of the kind, made of glass and painted in beautiful colours, like mint green or pale pink. Most boot buttons, however, were made of enamelled metal, and the colours were far less exciting.