Tailoring for Women

It’s strange how music makes unusual connections in our brain. I was listening by chance to an old Yardbirds hit from 1966 – Over under sideways down… just as I was marking up some new cloth, when I realised that they were singing about exactly what I was doing! Cloth arrives folded with the wrong side facing out and right side protected in. You ‘mark up the job’ by laying out the fabric wrong side up, and tracing around the pattern with chalk. The cloth is folded into two layers from which the right and left sides of the garment are cut – backwards forwards square around…

The early stages of cutting the garment and preparing the smaller detail pieces are the most risky, for that is when a little mistake can render unusable an entire piece of fabric. And it’s also when it’s most difficult to visualise the shape in its correct aspect. But all through a project you have to constantly be aware of the ‘other side’ or you risk disaster: getting something back to front.

A 2-part sleeve has a top and under sleeve pattern; trousers also have a top and underside, and shirt collars have an upper and under piece. Collars are symmetrical, however, so the fabric can be folded and both sides cut at once. It’s the tricks like that which make the job so satisfying – when you realise you can do something quickly or uniquely as a consequence of the strange ways of working.

Recently I found an elegant solution to a creative problem by breaking one of the written rules of tailoring. The garment I was completing required some contrasting patterned material for trims and sleeve cuffs, but overall the look had to appear integrated. I realised that the cloth was equally attractive on both sides. The same colour threads of course, but the way that cloth is woven produces front and back patterns which are distinctly different. Nine times out of ten, the consequent pattern which appears at the back of the cloth has little visual interest. But in this case, I realised that it, too, was worth looking at. So instantly I had my contrasting but harmonious trim material – I simply used the same cloth wrong side out.

I made a swirling rouleaux trim along the front this way. It was a tricky job to create the small tubes from a bias-cut piece of cloth, turning them inside out and pressing them into a long section of circular shapes. (Here is an interesting explanation of rouleaux technique.) And then I tackled the sleeve cuffs, finally sewing on mother of pearl buttons – upside down, to create a more attractive match.

Tags: jackets, rouleaux, tailored suits