Tailoring for Women

In a UK market where we are told the average women’s size is 16, for the Sunday Times Style magazine to feature the fuller figure (”The Triumph of Curves“) seems timely.  We have covered this topic before, however I think in the case of this article it does need something of a reality check.

It is interesting that all the models photographed look beautifully proportioned.  In my experience such perfection is not always apparent and the fuller figure does present a number of challenges that are not always equally distributed.  Something else worth mentioning is how the body shape will change when one is active.  Even the simple act of sitting down can put stresses on a garment that require a tolerance not obvious in some of the featured samples.

I first started to look closer at the moulding of the female form when I worked with the designer Georgina Godley in the recreation of her 80’s “Lumps and Bumps” collection for  “Addressing the Century: 100 years of Art and Fashion” at London’s Hayward Gallery in 1999.  I spent many hours with a mannequin, chunks of foam rubber glued together, and an electric carving knife, exploring different body shapes.

It is interesting to notice, when ready-made garments are graded up to larger sizes how these can look somehow out of balance on a larger frame.  This is particularly noticeable at the shoulder line which often appears to “grow” too wide.  If a garment fits neatly to the span of the shoulder it is much more flattering for a woman (the fit for men is different).

Without being too technical, when drafting a pattern for a bespoke piece the trick is to merge an accurate shoulder measure into the proportionally larger bust and waist.  A neat armhole must marry up to a darting system for the bustline.  If this is styled well the garment will fit the main points on the figure and trick the eye into seeing a smaller size.  Of course this is not so easy to reproduce for the mass market.

If you have a larger frame it helps if you are tall;  with an ample bust, balanced hips and shoulders, and a well defined waist - certainly when it comes to dressing from the high street.  Otherwise one has to look at a combination of solutions.

It is interesting also to note how some fuller figures work better with fitted clothing, whereas others need a looser fit, or even a combination of the two. Balance is everything, and not always easy to achieve from hunting through racks of clothes.

This is why we are here!

In some ways this post is an extension of the last Briefing for Bespoke post (Line, shape, proportion), but this time with a slightly more light-hearted tone as befits the Christmas season.

Strange as it may seem I first came across the Tailor’s Rule of Thumb when talking with the artist Kristin Newton, who uses a selection of ‘body’ parts for estimating proportion when teaching her drawing course at the Right Brain Research Centre in Tokyo (hence the notes in Japanese). This is an example of the way in which the width of the eye is used as a preliminary means of mapping out the proportions of a face.

Before accurate measuring systems were in place the body was often used as a measuring system. For instance for the Egyptians a common cubit was the length of the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, whereas a span for the Ancients was the largest distance between the points of two fingers measured on a man’s outstretched hand; around 22.9 centimetres, 9 inches or 1/4 yard. The measurement of an inch is gauged as the distance between the base of the thumbnail and the first joint, and from this connection, in French and Portuguese both the words for thumb and the unit of measure have a common derivation; respectively un pouce and polegada (from polegar - thumb).

With the Tailor’s Rule of Thumb however, the purpose is to establish comparative proportions so that by taking just one measurement, irrespective of one’s size, it should be theoretically possible to map out the basic elements of a body’s contours. Jonathan Swift has Gulliver refer to this during his stay in Lilliput (Gulliver’s Travels ):

“The Seamstresses took my measure as I lay on the ground, one standing at my neck, the other at my mid-leg, with a strong cord extended, that each held by the end whilst a third measured the length of the cord with a rule of an inch long. Then they measured my right Thumb, and desired no more; for by a mathematical Computation, that twice round the Thumb is once around the Wrist, and so on to the Neck and Waist, and by the help of my old Shirt, which I displayed on the Ground before them for a Pattern, they fitted me exactly.”

There is an anecdote in the tailoring community about a client who came in to buy some trousers, wrapped the waistband twice around his neck and left with them over his arm with the pronouncement that they  would be a perfect fit. An interesting snippet but one that perhaps needs a grain or two of salt. Much of the art of the tailoring process lies in the accurate measurement and the subsequent balancing of a pattern. A highly skilled job needing a critical eye, so perhaps this novel method should be left with the Lilliputians.

It might be fun however as we are in the midst of party season to find some alternative proportions that would work for everyone. Of course the true test would come once the post Christmas dieting has kicked in.

Let me know what you come up with! And of course… a Happy New Year to all.

Photo: thanks to Glasgow University, RBR (Tokyo)

You may have caught the compelling TV series “Madmen“.  The story of the how the advertising industry took fire on Madisson Avenue in the 60’s.  (30 years earlier the father of PR, Edward Bernays had started the ball rolling by helping the tobacco industry sell cigarettes to women with the somewhat questionable byline ‘A Torch for Liberty’!).  In one episode an eager young secretary was given this down to earth advice from one of her more seasoned colleagues with regards to dressing in the work place.”Go home, cut 2 holes in a paper bag, put it over your head, stand in front of a mirror and take a good look at your at yourself”.  A novel way indeed to assess your body line, but also one that is not too far off the mark.  The first step in deciding how to dress is to get an accurate understanding of your own unique body shape and how to accommodate its proportions.

I can sense that for some this may be something that requires a little courage, but to help you, here is a method that you might find more effective than the ‘paper bag’ solution.
You will need:

• a digital camera
• a printer
• a marker pen
• some tracing paper or similar

Over your usual foundation garments put on a leotord or some similar  body-hugging garment.  Using the self portrait setting on your camera,  take full length pictures of yourself from two aspects; the front and the side.   Print these out in full on A4 paper.  With the pen and  tracing paper copy the outline of your body, then mark in the top of your head, shoulder line, bustline, waistline, hip line, knees, elbows and wrists.

An alternative methoed for perhaps the more creatively inclined I learned from the artist Kristin Newton who has her students stand in front of a mirror looking at their reflected image through a sheet of perspex held a short distance from their face; it is important to view it with just one eye open in order not to distort the perspective.  Then trace around the outline of your body’s image in the mirror directly on to the perspex with a marker.

Before we go to the next stage however, let’s take a step back into antiquity and look at how  proportion was perceived by  the old Masters using the system known as the Golden Section, or the Golden Ratio.  This is a special mathematical relationship whereby a line, divided into two parts (a, b) has a relationship between the whole and its parts so that the ratio between the small section (b) to the larger section (a) is equal to the ratio between the larger section and the whole i.e. a:b = (a+b):a.

This image showing how the Golden Section was applied is from a study carried out at the Virginia Wesleyian College into Bottecelli’s Birth of Venus.

You can see how ‘perfection’ was perceived as a matter or proportion.  The reality is that few of us conform to this sylph-like ideal, however what we aspire to when selecting the style of a garment is to give the illusion of a well balanced proportion.

Now, using both tracings and photographs, take note of  the areas where the body mass is most emphasised.  Compare how the shape of the silhoutte changes between the bust, waist and hip.  Notice the degree of definition of the waist, small of the back, hips and bottom. The reason for using both tracings is that you may find, for example, from the front aspect you appear full and round, whereas from the side you may have a flatter silhouette.

The way in which we can start to balance out our proportions is by using two separate systems of analysis.  A Body Type template (you will need a pdf viewer to access this file) which associates one’s proportions with suggestions for silhouette, fabrics, details and patterns, and a set of supplementary modifications I have called Qualifiers which help with the vertical and horizontal rebalancing.

With statistics showing that most women wear 20% of their wardrobe 80% of the time,  perhaps with a little more knowledge in how to select for proportion, these statistics can be encouraged to change.  Fashion is one thing, the bodies we were graced with is another!

Initial Image: thanks to Guardian/BBC/AMC