Margolis - Make Your Own Dress Patterns

To make patterns for clothes designed to conform to the figure, one must know length, width, and figure (rather than geometric) shape. Such garments and those with more intricate styling than that offered by a simple geometric shape are developed by drafting or draping. Draping is a highly personal, slow, often costly method of producing patterns. Flat-pattern drafting is a simple, standard, fast, comparatively inexpensive method. Therefore, the latter is (understandably) more widely used today than draping. (Directions for draping will be found in Chapter 15.)

Flat patterns start with and are variations of a block pattern a geometric shape again. (The block pattern is also called a sloper or basic pattern. )

Accustomed as they were to dealing with rectangular lengths of cloth, those inventive souls who devised the flat-pattern system saw the rectangle as a logical starting point. By measuring a certain amount down, up, or over, within the rectangle, they found it possible to construct a block pattern for a bodice, a skirt, sleeves, slacks, and the like. This was, in fact, the method used (still used by many) for producing style patterns as well as slopers.

Great as it is, a pattern is flat while you are not and thereby hangs a tale.

The body has height, width, and depth. Within this roughly cylindrical framework there are a series of secondary curves and bulges, each with its high point, or apexmore in a woman, less in a man, and differently placed in a child. These concern the patternmaker for the pattern must provide enough length and width of fabric to cover the high points (where the body is fullest, the measurements largest, and the fabric requirements greatest) while at the same time providing some means of controlling the excess material in a smaller adjoining area. Dart control is the means by which this is accomplished.

Wherever on the body there is a difference between two adjoining measurements (bust or chest and waist, hips and waist, lower shoulder blades and waist, upper shoulder blades and shoulders) or wherever movement creates a bulge (as at the elbow), you will find that some form of shaping by dart control is necessary.

Dart control is the basic structure of all fitted and semifitted clothing whatever the design. The rules for dart control apply equally to childrens, boys, and mens clothing as well as to girls and womens. The needs of a womans figure are most marked, so the principles of dart control can be more clearly demonstrated by it. There is this too: there are more variations in design in womens clothing than in mens. Therefore, the illustrations in this book are largely limited to womens clothing.

DART CONTROL, A SYSTEM FOR SHAPING FABRIC TO FIT THE FIGURE

This is how dart control works. Say your hips measure 37 inches and your waist measures 27 inches. The garment must fit at both waist and hips despite their difference in measurement. That 10-inch differential comes out in dart control.

The greater the difference, the larger the amount of control. The smaller the difference, the smaller the amount of control. It is not whether a figure is short or tall, heavy or slim, which determines that amount. It is always the relationship between the two adjoining measurements.