In order to put the year into context, it seems like a good time to revisit some of the details that piqued our interest in 2015. Over the next few weeks we’ll revisit some of the year’s most popular articles to give you a chance to catch up on some of the dart permutations you might have missed.
Pattern making details are often the easiest to appreciate when the garment has minimal embellishment, and the collection of articles below highlight some of the pattern making manipulations at work in the collections at Dior, Balenciaga, Delpozo and DZHUS. As is so often the case with sewing and fashion design it is the simple details that are often the hardest to create since there is no room to hide. In the case of many of these garments, minimal seam lines and scant use of darts gives the pattern maker very little room to manipulate for fit changes. The solution is often to maximise how much extra give you can get out of the fabric by using the grain line to your advantage and by easing in small amounts of fit value along the seam line. To achieve this effect, many designers find it more straight forward to work directly on the stand to shape the fabric since any shaping and changes are more tangible than what can be achieved by flat pattern making alone.
Christian Dior, SS15, Haute Couture, Paris.
Bust Shaping with Panel Lines at Dior
In discussing some of the details from the Balenciaga Pre-Fall 2015 collection, we began to discuss how moving the positions of panel lines can affect your ability as a pattern maker to fit the fabric to the body. As it happens the Christian Dior Haute Couture collection for Spring-Summer 2015 included garments that pushed panel lines away from the bust point apex to achieve slightly different fit variations on one basic sleeveless silhouette.
Balenciaga, PF15, Paris.
Bust Shaping Considerations at Balenciaga
Sometimes a design that is very simple on paper can throw some surprisingly tricky pattern considerations at you. There was one particularly simple dress from the Balenciaga pre-collection that illustrates a possible solution to an important question: When you move a seam line away from an apex of the body, what are your pattern options to keep the same fit value?
Balenciaga, AW15, Paris.
Pattern Shaping at Balenciaga
Some time ago, we discussed some of the different ways you can position fabric on the body to create different sleeve shapes. In particular, there are many different design possibilities that open up to you when you give up on the typical bodice / sleeve arrangement and start to blur the positions of these garment parts to create more unusual silhouettes. In this post, we’ll look at the cocoon shaped coats and jackets from the Balenciaga collection for Autumn-Winter 2015 to look at how the fabric has been shaped in these garments.
Christian Dior, SS16, Paris.
Pure Construction at Christian Dior
After the recent news that Raf Simons would no longer be the artistic director at Dior (for women’s RTW, Haute Couture and accessories), it seemed a fitting time to celebrate the fineness of the construction details in his last collection for Spring-Summer 2016. After all, it’s possible that not everyone heard the news that Simons was leaving Dior and felt saddened by the thought that in future there may be a little less bust dart inspiration in the world.
Delpozo, AW15, New York.
Pattern Cutting Details from Delpozo
The Delpozo collections often use clever pattern cutting details to create sculptural details or to support the silhouettes of the garments. In the Autumn-Winter 2015 collection some of the pattern making details worth noticing include sleeves that grow from panels or out of darts, and a sleeve that appears to be a variation on a raglan sleeve.
DZHUS, “Totalitarium”, AW15, Kiev.
Wearable Architecture at DZHUS
The Autumn-Winter 2015 collection for DZHUS was filled with geometric details that used tucks and pleating to fold fabric around the body. Designer Irina Dzhus spoke to us about her pattern making process for the collection and discussed how fabric choice can make the difference between a piece being regarded as a wearable garment or sidelined as a concept piece.
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