This leather coat is very loosely based on a coat worn by the character  Cerdic in 2004's King Arthur movie.  I used garment weight leather with the suede side out for most of the coat.  It has seam at the waist and four "skirt" panels.  There is a deep slit at center back.  The actual coat is made of much heavier grade leather and can support real metal armor.  

The vest is cut slight larger than the coat and is worn with the smooth side of the leather out.  There are two vaguely circular pieces of suede on top of that, covering the attachment of the chain mail.  

In this close-up of the back, you can see the center back seam of the overlayer of suede and the corded handsticthing at the neckline where all the layers of the coat and vest meet up.

The "chain mail" was just lightweight Halloween mesh material that I doubled and soaked in liquid starch.  I let the soaked fabric dry, then sprayed it with a matte sealer like one would do with decoupage.  I sewed a strip of folded leather along one long edge and attached that to the vest.

The straps were doubled layers of the coat leather, attached to either side of the center front opening of the vest, sewn to the coat through all layers -- quite a struggle for my poor sewing machine!  I took it slow and it worked OK.  I bought the buckles for 20 cents a piece at a local Tandy leather store.

The coat and first vest layer are cord stitched together like the neckline.

The coat was FAR too big for my poor little mannequin, so it looks pretty sloppy kind of draped on there!

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