Patterns in Dressmaking

Dressmakers cut out the garments by a pattern which is designed to fit the wearer, and also to embody in itself all the details that vary with fashion, such as the placing of seams and fastening edges, length, fullness, etc. Fit and style depend on the pattern, which must, therefore, be absolutely correct. Gutting and fitting by measure have largely superseded the older methods. The person to be fitted is measured, and from the measurements a pattern is drafted out according to a set of rules already laid down, and called a “system.” Correct balance is essential with all draftings, however constructed; without it the measurements may be exact and the shaping correct, but the garment refuses to lie to the body at the point where the balance is imperfect, and so produces a misfit. The balance varies with the poise of the figure: women who carry their shoulders well back require the front longer from the side level upwards than is needed by those who reverse this habit of carriage. The fit is affected by the corsets, and these vary from one season to another, but always aim at giving the figure the appearance most admired at the time: thus the dressmaker must cut to suit the prevailing fashion in corsets, as well as to fit and grace the wearer. One half of the pattern only is required in the ordinary run of work, the two sides of the garment being generally cut alike. In the case of one-sided deformity (whether slight or grave) the two sides of the garment are still cut alike, but with ample turnings; the garment, partly made, is then placed on the client, and the needed alterations are effected by moulding, the ample turnings being utilized as required.

With the ordinary middle-class dress, once the great question of the pattern has been settled, the workroom procedure is much the same throughout the trade. The lining is doubled and spread out on the cutting table; the parts of the pattern are planned out upon it, the middle of the length of each piece being on the straight length thread of the stuff, so that all the seams may fall slightly on the bias, and the lining is cut out with a margin (‘turnings’) of from one to one and a half inches beyond the outline of the pattern.

The outline is then transferred to the lining by piercing, either with the point of a stiletto, or by running a pricking wheel over the lines. The style lines, which indicate yokes, vests, or other decoration, are also marked through. The pattern being planned out upon it, the stuff is then cut double, with the needed allowance for draping, tucking, folding, or other fashionable decoration. Each piece of lining is then placed on the stuff belonging to it, and the two are tacked out in or near the outline, the stuff being slightly stretched down the length. The surplus fullness is arranged as far as possible in the required ornamental form, and the sections are then joined by the waist lines, or by marks previously arranged, and tacked together by temporary stitches with firm cotton of a different colour. If the pattern is a new one, the bodice is usually tried on at this stage; but if it has been tested before, or if the lining has been tried on, the fastening edges are turned and finished with the fastenings decided upon, and all the seams, except those on the shoulders and one under each arm, are machined, using a close stitch to prevent gaping. The turnings left beyond the outline in cutting out are pared down to about three-quarters of an inch in width, scalloped out at the edges, and bound over with very narrow ribbon, or overcast with a close stitch to protect the edges and prevent them from fraying. These turnings are pressed back (sometimes before neatening, sometimes after) with a warm iron, smooth flat seams being an essential feature of good dressmaking. The next step is to sew casings of narrow ribbon to the inside of the flattened turnings, covering the seam about one-third of the length of the bodice above the waist, and a few inches below it; into these casings slip3 of whalebone are inserted, and as the casings are fulled on down the length at the waist, the bones are pressed down into them, and assist in smoothening and stiffening the bodice. Dressmakers endeavour to complete the bodice to this stage before trying on. For this process the seams already indicated as being left for alterations are simply pinned or tacked together to the outside of the bodice, and the garment is placed on the client, and is carefully looked over by the maker. Visible faults are often corrected by unpinning the seams, smoothing the objectionable wrinkles away, and repinning smoothly; but where the alteration is a simple one, this is not always necessary, for a pin or a mark will indicate the amount of correction required, and the work can be done after the trying on is completed, thus saving time to the worker and fatigue to the client.

The History Of Term Fashion.

In general terms fashion signifies the most widely accepted or highly favoured mode in dress, manners, speech, occu­pation, pursuit, or even manner of thought. Dress, perhaps, affords the most striking and tangible instances of the reign of fashion. The earliest garments were nat­urally of skins. The invention of weaving gave possibility of greater variety, which increased with civilization. In the East fashion has altered little since times immemorial—the word has not there the Western signifi­cance; difference in clothing de­notes merely difference of rank. In China sumptuary laws preclude possibility of change; but India and Japan are in some slight degree ready to adopt Western modes. The ancient Briton fash­ioned his garments of skins, with leggings or braccae, the original breeches. In Roman times the skin coat became a tunic and later a doublet, which continued with little variation till, in the ‘golden days,’ it further de­veloped into the prototype of the modern coat and waistcoat. The Romans introduced the toga, still surviving as the cloak in Spain; but this garment was so little suited to the climate of North Europe that it was discarded. The shirt is of Teutonic origin, and is seen with little variation in the labourer’s smock and the blouse of Swiss and French work­men. Boots were adopted after the Saxon conquest, for the Saxon never went barefoot. The Saxon leg-bandages, once general, are still seen in the leg-bands of the holster. Gauls covered their heads, a fashion which continued intermittently, the hat or bonnet varying in shape till the steeple crown of the Puritan passed to America, to undergo slight al­teration and be brought again eastward, become fashionable in France through Benjamin Frank­lin, and develop into the modern tall hat. With the Roman con­quest of England came splendour of dress; while under the feudal system the fashion in cut and colour differed for each class — distinctions still preserved in naval and military uniforms. Each trade, too, had its peculiar garb — a fashion surviving, with modifications, in the professional dress of the barrister and the maidservant’s cap and apron.

There was little difference be­tween the long tunic of British and Gallic women and that of Rome. Saxons wore the long tunic, with a shorter tunic or gown — the original of “gown”; the Normans added sleeves, but henceforth there was little change except in the length or width of the tunics, shape of sleeve, or peculiarity of trimming and head­dress. In these matters fashion revolves in cycles, and tends to change with more and more rapidity; this again leads to quicker and less excellent pro­duction of material, which in turn reacts on fashion. For many centuries Paris, on account of dainty and artistic inventiveness and imagination, set the fashion in women’s clothes to Europe; this enviable position is now par­tially usurped by Vienna, while transatlantic opinion is potent in the matter. For men’s clothes the fashion is set in London. The idiosyncrasies of kings and queens, as well as the foibles of prominent men, poets, and others, have set fashions; as an instance, we have the Byronic necktie. Apropos of this may be mentioned the affected and shallow talk of ‘culture,’ when Matthew Arnold first became a fashion in the universities — for mannerisms in speech, even as in dress, come under the heading fashion. The end of such fashions is gener­ally brought about by derision. Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience put an end to aestheticism as a cult or fashion, and the “de­cadent lock” was brushed back from the forehead of youth. Books likewise have set fashions; for instance, Voltaire and Montesquieu, unconsciously, and doubtless much to their amuse­ment, brought about in France a curious imitation of British manners. So did Fauntleroy col­lars, some fifteen years ago, come into vogue, the  drawings of R. B. Birch assisting the imita­tors of the apparel of that mar­vellous boy. Coming thus to artists, the American girl has, to a most noticeable degree, been created by Charles Dana Gibson, the manner of dressing the hair and certain poses which appear now typically American having had their origin in the fancy of that artist. In Britain the recent spirit of militarism has affected our literature and our dress. The wearing of the hand­kerchief in the left sleeve is borrowed from the army, owing to lack of pockets there. The twin buttons in the small of a coat, useless to us (ornamental only through custom), were used formerly to fasten up the coat skirt.