Body analysis for dress design

On monday, I suggested considering your proportions as one of the starting points for designing your dress. Today, I've decided to try and show what I meant by that.

In general, seamstresses have a better idea about the shape and size of their own bodies than other people. After all, a lot of sewing time goes into fitting and altering-to-fit. As a pattern maker, you will need to hone that awareness even more.

And after all, we've all been there, made something because it looked so good in the pattern magazine or on the envelope, spent many hours making and fitting it only to end up with a garment which doesn't actually suit our body and our style. Pattern making (especially for a beginner) takes even more of your time and you won't want all that effort to be wasted.

So: how to look at, and analyse your body shape. Please allow me to introduce my example: Lauriana (I'm standing a bit funny in the front view. My shoulders are not that uneven)

From the front we see a long neck, angular shoulders, a fairly featureless upper torso and a significant difference between waist and hip, with the widest point fairly far down, at the top of the thigh. The legs are shapely. All in all, the body is a bit bottom-heavy.

From the side, the most striking thing is its flat-ness. Breasts hardly stick out, the stomach is flat and buttocks are there but make a fairly small curve.

These are the observations. Having made these, consider what to emphasize with clothes.

Forget the beauty/fashion magazine tricks for dividing women into apples and pears, rulers and inverted triangles. Although their tips can be useful, each woman's body is different and not every woman may want to work towards the same 'ideal'. Just to give and example, I filled out one of those body-type questionaires once and it said I was a ruler. When I look at my front view though, I'd say I'm a pear. Granted, a rather small pear, but still.

Personally, I like my waist-to-hip ratio and I like that wider hip in general. I feel it's what gives me a feminine figure, despite being skinny. It is also very appropriate for a vintage-inspired dress. Because of it, I think I can pick any of the skirt shapes I mentioned before (pencil-skirt, A-line, circle skirt, gathered skirt). I think for length, depending on the style of the skirt I can do lengths between 15 cm above and 10 cm below the knee (the latter only for very full skirts). And ankle to flour length of course, but that's not really what I'm going for now.

The upper torso is a bit more difficult. With the width of the rib cage and small breasts, it can easily end up looking like a rectangle. It's a fine body shape for normal clothes (probably easier than those hips) but not grea

t for vintage styles which are all about ladylike curves.

Of course, there are tricks. For a 50's-style dress, I usually keep a bit more ease at chest that at the waist and I don't go for any of those (very period accurate) smooth bodices with high necklines. Mine is an upper body flattered by the roomy drape of a cowl neck or by big collars which grow from V shaped necklines (a 'bare' V-neck is out of the question, of course. Now that is a style for the bigger busted ladies among us). All those design elements add width and fullness at the bust. To show off the small waist, I like to wear my vintage style dresses with a (usually dark coloured or black) belt.

(Oh, and of course I know I could wear a push-up bra but I don't like those and I actually don't consider small breasts to be a problem)

Oh, and have you ever wondered about the difference which is made to your shape and posture by wearing heels? Here's an example of that:

Obviously, I don't expect anyone to show off herself in this way here on the internet, just for the draft-along. However, I do think it's a great idea to have a look at yourself this way. In my job, I meet women every week who didn't know they were hiding a waist under shapeless tops and above low-rise trousers. Don't be that woman, study what you've got so you can figure out how to show it to its advantage. If you want to share pictures for advice, the Flickr-group photostream is for members only, so there is some privicy there (please tag such pictures as 'body-shape')

The following people left comments about wanting to join the draft-along but have no email adresses on their profiles:

abaffledcat, Jacqueline deRuyter, Barbara, tantmonokrom, Ewa, Amy (I did read your comment about not having time now, but you may want to be signed up anyway so you can follow along later), ginevra/occasional glimpses, Anna Keaton and overflowingstash.

Please get in touch with me through aicha_hockx AT hotmail DOT com to get your invitation to the Flickr group.

Of course you can also email me at that adress with questions or if you've only just decided to participate in the draft-along.

Designing your draft-along dress

If you think sewing presents you with a lot of options to choose from and decisions to make, you may feel a bit overwhelmed by the the very idea of pattern making. It's only natural ;)

After all, if you are making the pattern, the only limits are your imagination and your technical ability (both in sewing and in understanding and therefore drafting patterns). But, maybe it is fortunate that there are some limitations to designing a dress for the draft-along.

Depending on the kind of sloper you are using, you may have noticed already why a dress with a waist seam is 'easier' technically: many drafting methods use a waist length bodice as their basic shape (I think this can be inconvenient with a lot of contemporary clothes and I prefer methods which also pay attention to a hip length bodice but it's absolutely fine for a vintage-style dress) and having a waist seam allows you to use the full spectrum of dart rotation options. And you can basically define drafting a dress pattern as: drafting a bodice and picking your prefered skirt style.

Those are the technical considerations. The style ones are a little trickier.

The words 'vintage style dress' mean different things to different people. Everyone has her prefered fashion eras. Some of you may want a period accurate creation while others really need their dress to work in an everyday environment (maybe even to be worn among people with little tolerance for alternative looks). And, also quite important, we all have different body shapes.

As far as fashion eras go, the technical limitation of the waist seam sort of limits us to late 1940's to early 1960's styles. This is an era which lot of people in the sewing blogosphere love, so I don't expect any problems there. Of course, you can take inspiration for details in your design from any era you like.

How 'costum-y' or 'normal' the overall look will be depends not just on your design but almost as much on the choice of fabric and on how it's worn. Any bigger skirted dress can look very 50's with a fluffy petticoat...

In my opinion, the look you want to achieve should always be considered in relation to my third point: body shape.

The fashionable body shape of the 1950's was, quite obviously, the hourglass. Today, it's mostly the ruler. Back then, there was foundation wear on offer to give yourself a fashionable silhouette (think waist cinchers, girdles, cone bras). Nowadays, we diet and/or exercise (of course I know it's not that black-and-white, but I'm just trying to make a bit of a point).

Most of us today would not want to wear those restricting foundations all day and, in general, people are a bit bigger that they used to be 60 years ago. On the other hand, take a look at old family pictures and find out that girls in the 50's had about the same chance of looking like a fashion model as you or me today...

My point being: a 1950's style dress won't instantly make you look like Dovima (Dior's favorite model).

So, take a good look at your own body. We're absolutely not talking size here. We're talking about shape and proportion (today's truly hourglass shaped girls tend to have a lot of trouble shopping for clothes and may well think themselves bigger than they really are).

The hourglass may be the 50's ideal, but don't worry, there are plenty of ways to trick the eye. I think I will explain my tried and tested tricks, as well as some common-sense solutions for other body types, when we discuss drafting options.

By the way, the picture I put with this post is the silhouette of what may just be the most recognisable vintage fashion look: Dior's "bar" suit, modeled by Dovima. I was looking for one of those 'shapes of fashion' line-ups in Google images, when I found a treasure trove of line drawings of 1900-1950 clothes on here, which is only a small section of this website. Despite the fact that its focus is a bit early for draft-along purposes, it's a great place to explore of dress inspiration (and keep in mind that 'don't likes' can be as important as 'likes' when it comes to design choices).

Draft-along: practical information

It's great to see so even more people interested in a draft-along! I'm sorry it's taking me so long to set this thing up properly, but I seem to be hitting some computer-litteracy roadblocks ;) It's nothing I can't overcome, but it all takes time...

So, to start out, I will try to answer some questions which arose in the comments (I will try to answer each one personally, but I think more people may wonder about this):

The point of this draft-along is, as I explained in this post, to draft a retro-style dress, using Burdastyle's JJ sloper, or any other bodice sloper you may have as a starting point. I chose to start with ready-made slopers and to include only simple design details in order to make this a fun way to start and experiment with making patterns. The malfunctioning poll was intended to tell me which style would be the most popular, so I could work on that, making only minor detours to explain simple other options. As it is now, I will explain all three skirt options, some sleeve options and any not-too-difficult bodice/neckline issues which proove to be popular in your designs.

I hope this answers some questions.

In my previous post, I suggested everyone tries to make a design for herself. I'm not doing this because I too lazy, too busy or not sufficiently creative to come up with a good idea myself. No, I did that because, to me, that is the great advantage of making your own patterns: you are not bound to anyone else's design, you can make what you like and what works for your body. I will discuss design options and designing for specific body shapes this weekend.

I have also set up a Flickr group for the draft-along. I thought it would be wise to make it 'by invitation only', just to keep out random weirdos but that means I have to invite each of you by email or Flickr-account name (you can also be invited to the group, and participate in it, if you don't have a Flickr account, so don't worry about that). If you already signed up for the draft-along (and have an email-adress in you blogger profile or mentioned it in the comment) I will email you about this. If you haven't yet and want to be part of it, you can email me at aicha_hockx AT hotmail DOT com.

And finally, someone commented about not being able to find the JJ sloper. This surprised me, but guess what: it's gone. The Burdastyle member who created it isn't listed anymore, so I guess she went and took her creation with her. Burdastyle does offer this sloper dress pattern, but it's only in size 38 and of course, the JJ sloper lives on in Elainemay's Coffee Date dress, which was based on it. Although I think the Coffee Date dress is lovely, I would not recommend using it as a sloper because of the scooped neckline and narrow shoulder (although it could be used for something like a sleeveless cowl neck bodice).

I noticed that many of you have your own slopers, so this may not be so much of an issue. Again, I will email those of you who signed up already, but if you don't receive a messege from me, or if you're only signing up now, please tell me if the missing sloper is a problem for you. We'll find a solution.

Also, if you happen to know a good bodice sloper (pattern or tutorial) which is available online and for free, please, please put it in the comments. (and why am I not telling you how to make a sloper like mine? Well, it's a method from a book and I don't want to violate their copyright and it's in Dutch and hard to translate)

Please read the comments to this post to find out how to download the JJ sloper. Claire found out more about it: it got mysteriously re-named when they changed the website. Just follow Claire's excellent explanation to download the sloper. And to answer Nancy's question: I will either show you how to draft a sleeve or draft a multi-size sleeve to fit the JJ sloper and unload that to Burdastyle.

Draft-along plans

Hi everyone! I'm sorry I didn't get the poll-thing to work properly but I don't think it was too much of an issue. After all, most of you mentioned your prefered design details in the comments and it won't be a problem to discuss more than one of the options for most parts of the dress.

I think it's good to draw up a bit of a time schedule for the draft-along (although it's still flexible). Some of you mentioned being busy until mid-October and after that, the Holiday season will creep up quickly. From my point of view, it would work well to think about design during this week, fit slopers (for those who need to do that, with the help of the experienced pattern makers among us) next week and start with the actual drafting in the second half of the month. This should allow us to have finished dresses in the first weeks of November.

If that's all right for most of you, I'll try and make it into a proper schedule.

(I may just have a problem myself though: my sewing machine keeps skipping stitches. Although it does all right on a piece of scrap fabric, it's terrible in the crinkly linen I've been using for my most recent muslins. It might that it's the fabric for hell for my poor lovely sewing machine, but if it isn't... Well, I may just have to take the machine away for maintenance. Although I could take that as an opportunity to use my grandmother's hand-crank machine for this project)

I'm going to make a Flickr-pool for the draft-along (which I've never done before) and I will email everyone who signed up with the information about that.

For now, I'd like to suggest that you try and sketch up a design. Don't worry about not being good at sketching. I'm not that good myself but it can still be helpful in developing one's ideas for a garment and/or a pattern.

For quite some time, I traced shapes to make my sketches work. Fashion drawing instruction pictures for the little ladies with my previous post, but usually the picture you see here, Burdastyle's wire croqui. By now, I'm sufficiently used to the croqui's proportions that I don't really need it anymore. You can just print the croqui and put it under the sheet of paper you are drawing on or you can import it into Illustrator (or any other kind of drawing software, I guess) and put it in a layer under the one in which you are making the actual drawing.

Of course, you can still sign up for the draft-along, if you haven't yet...

Who wants to draft along?

Hi everyone! Who wants to join me in drafting and making a dress?

I want this draft-along to be open to anyone with in interest in pattern making, so it's not going to be rocket science ;)

I plan on using the (free) JJ sloper from the Burdastyle website and (if necessary) I will draft and upload a matching sleeve for it. I will discuss fitting the sloper and of course, if you have your own sloper or want to draft your own using either Pattern Magic or Winifred Aldrich, I'd be happy to give any advice you may need.

Of course, we have to decide on what kind of dress to make. Making your own patterns opens up a world of possibilities, even if you've already decided to stick with a classic dress shape with a waist seam. So, if you want to draft along, please leave a comment and take the poll. Vote for as many or as few elements as you would like. Rest assured that this won't limit the draft-along to something you may not like. I intend to discuss several options within the same general design, and adding a different skirt is always easy.

Poll: Which design details do you want for the draft-along dress?

(half) circle skirt

pleated/gathered skirt

pencil skirt

sleeveless

cap sleeves

fitted sleeves

shirt sleeves

button-down bodice

midriff band

gathers/pleats in bodice

cowl neck

convertible collar

wide, draped collar

V-neckline

^Tussenstand:

^{Ook een poll maken? Klik hier}

It seems that the poll will only allow you to pick one thing. I'm sorry about that, it is my first time using one of these polling gizmos. Just use this one to pick your prefered skirt style and I'll put up seperate polls for the other elements this evening (because I don't have time to do it right now)

Still slow but steady

It seems like there are so many things to get in the way of starting a new sewing project...

I actually had the whole of last weekend off (I've been working every Saturday since March, excluding my vacation) and thought I could get a lot of drafting done. I had just managed to forget a little chore which was really getting in the way of me creating more patterns: My old patterns had taken over my sewing room.

I'm usually hanging my patterns on coat hangers which I keep on a rail in my sewing room. However, the coat hangers are those cheap all plastic ones and I had the one carrying my dress patterns had bent out of shape and fallen down months ago. I had put it slightly out of harm's way on the floor and left it there for consideration at some other moment when I might be able to make time of that.

Well, if a free weekend doesn't give me time to sort out the sewing room...

So I did.

And on Monday evening, I did make a tentative start on a new project. I want to make a raincoat in some plastic coated, aubergine coloured cotton which I bought on sale a few months ago. I've been thinking about it all through the rainy months of July and August.

I have lowered the armscyes of a raglan base pattern which I made last year. I made a muslin, hindered by a terrible bout of stitch skipping from my beloved sewing machine (it might be because of a bad needle, since I already cleaned, oiled and checked for issues with the bobbin and with thread tension. O please let it be the needle...).

It's sort of OK, but the angle of the sleeve should be changed to allow more freedom of movement and I think it's not quite as wide in the body as I would like. Being all wide and open, it won't be the most practical of rain coats, but eh... I'm fine with that.

I'll be back soon with updates on the raincoat, and posts about the things I said I wanted to write about.

The man's jacket

Here it is: E's finished jacket. He has been wearing it for a few days now and says he's happy with it (in case you are wondering about the trousers: he usually wears black jeans, but now, for the weekend, he was in the leaf-green bermudas I made him last year and it's already quite something to get him to pose in his new clothes). It is funny to see him struggle into it, though. Because this thing is shaped like a proper men's jacket, it has higher and narrower sleeve heads than he's used to (from shirts and casual jackets) and it's unlined so it doesn't slide easily over his shirt.

I think I already told you the basic facts about this jacket: it's made from black cotton twill, in the shape of a traditional men's jacket. I used flat-felled seams where I could and bias binding everywhere else. It has patch pockets which have slanted openings to the side and at one side a hidden inside pocket.

I drafted the pattern myself, with fairly extensive muslin fitting. From the back view here, you may think that there's too much room in the back but trust me, he really couldn't do without that space for movement...

By now you've probably noticed the fitting issue which is still annoying me: there is a rather obvious line pulling from the neckline to the armpit. It wasn't like that in the muslin. And what's more: I think I know why. I didn't make a muslin with the fully constructed collar on. The back neckline of the muslin, with it's clipped seam allowances, must have stretched out making it wider than the finished neckline-with-collar... And E has an unusually thick neck (one of the reasons I started drafting patterns for him in the first place).

I thought about tweaking the fit but that would mean deconstructing flat felled seams, the collar and maybe even taking the sleeves out. And even then, the real solution here would be adding extra width, which just isn't there. So, I guess I'll have to file this one under 'wearable muslin' or 'will do better next time', all the while telling myself that I would very likely have had the same issue if I had used a commercial pattern and that I would have been able to hide it a lot better in a formal lined, interlined and backed wool jacket...