Body Armor: Fashion and Function?

All these photos stemmed from the Versace FW 2010 line... love it. 

Day 2: ACNE Armor Jeans DIY

Materials:

Aluminum Tin Metal

Heavy Duty Clippers

Tape Measure

Jeans

Glue Gun with Fabric Glue

Cereal Bowl

Time: 

1-2 Hours

Difficulty:

Medium/Hard

Step 1: Buy yourself a roll of aluminum tin available in the roofing section of Home Depot for around $13 (pictured above).

Step 2: Use your clippers to cut off 3 sections of tin, one for thigh, one for shin, and one for knee. We will then take these sections and cut them down into their exact size listed below, and round the corners.


Shin: 5 1/2" tall x 4" wide
Knee: About the size of the bottom of a cereal bowl or 4" x 4" with metal flaps on side

Thigh: 4" tall x 5 1/2" tall

Step 3: Now you will want to lay all of your armor pieces out and contour your shin and thigh pieces to match your knee piece by cutting out half circles on the bottom of the thigh piece and the top of the shin piece. Pictured below

Step 4: Now that our armor is all done, you need to put on your pants to mark the exact positioning for your armor. The most crucial piece will be the knee piece which must go on the bottom half of your knee so you can bend freely. Mark the position with a fabric marker or sharpie and then place the shin and thigh piece above and below accordingly allowing enough room in between so they do not overlap or clash when your legs move.

Step 5: After marking your armor position, we can now attach them using the glue gun just glueing the right and left edges of the armor to the jeans. An alternative to glueing could be using velcro to attach the metal to the jean so then the metal pieces are removable and you could wash the jeans easily.

VOILA! YOU'RE DONE! 

Day 1: Acne Armor Jeans DIY

Today was Do-It-Yourself day I guess. I've been achin' for the Acne Armor jeans for quite sometime now, I originally axed a DIY ruling it near impossible. However today I was feeling frisky and got my brain juices flowing and with help from a friend decided to use aluminum roofing tin that is easily pliable (even for little girls) as the metal armor material. So I went to Home Depot wandered around aimlessly and out of place until I found the tin which was available in a 6" X 25' roll for around $13. I inherited a great old toolbox as well which I knew I could use to cut, ply, and contort into my desired pieces. I ended up using heavy duty scissors that my grandpa used to trim the rose bush with (name?) to cut my material into my desired shapes. My biggest unknown factor was attaching the tin panels to the jean, I initially thought to poke holes in the tin with a hammer and nail in the corners and stitch the tin to the jeans. However, it was seemingly tedious and awkward trying to sew the panels in the skinny leg of the jeans, so I impatiently took to the glue-gun to get the job done. My errors thus far are sizing of the panels, mine are too large, and the durability of the glue gun cohesion. I'll get back to you tomorrow with a full step-by-step tutorial and the finished product!