Basic Bodice For Fashion Design: Pattern Making Tutorial - How To Draft A Basic Pattern From Scratch | Nino Via | Skillshare
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Basic Bodice For Fashion Design: Pattern Making Tutorial - How To Draft A Basic Pattern From Scratch

teacher avatar Nino Via, Fashion Design, Instructor & Consultant

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      1 - Introduction. Who is this course for?

      3:13

    • 2.

      2 - Tools needed.

      4:29

    • 3.

      3 - Starting the measuring process: (a) Front, CF, Bust, etc

      5:50

    • 4.

      4 - Front (b) continued

      4:28

    • 5.

      5 - Front (c) continued

      4:01

    • 6.

      6 - Front (d) continued (Dart, part 1)

      2:48

    • 7.

      7 - Front (e) continued (Dart, part 2)

      4:37

    • 8.

      8 - Measuring Back Bodice (a)

      2:21

    • 9.

      9 - Back Bodice (b) continued

      2:24

    • 10.

      10 - Back Bodice (c) continued

      2:18

    • 11.

      11 - Back Bodice (d) continued

      3:01

    • 12.

      12 - Back Bodice (e) continued

      2:18

    • 13.

      13 - Measuring the Skirt (a)

      3:16

    • 14.

      14 - Measuring the Skirt (b)

      2:23

    • 15.

      15 - Measuring the Skirt (c)

      2:29

    • 16.

      16 - Measuring the Skirt (d)

      3:11

    • 17.

      17 - Measuring the Skirt (e)

      1:02

    • 18.

      18 - True the Darts

      2:17

    • 19.

      19 - Making a "longer" bodice (Fisheye Darts).

      1:56

    • 20.

      20 - A simple general concept of Pattern Grading.

      3:42

    • 21.

      21 - Working at Ralph Lauren - story time.

      1:54

    • 22.

      22 - Conclusion

      0:17

    • 23.

      Bonus Lecture: FAQs, and other "goodies", etc.

      9:43

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About This Class

Imagine what it’s like to be able to make designs for yourself or for a specific person/client.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to take measurements, whether it’s of your dress form, or of yourself, or a customer, this course will teach you how to do that, step-by-step, both for a Bodice and for a Skirt.

This Course is for a large variety of “students” — firstly, it is for beginners who want to learn how to draft a Basic Bodice, and a Basic Skirt. It is also for intermediate designers who want to learn how to measure a body, or dress form, and draft a pattern to fit specific measurements. It is also for advanced designers who want to make “made-to-order” designs to fit specific customers.

In this Course you will learn:

  • How to draft a Basic Bodice (Front and back), from scratch using specific measurement.

  • How to draft a Skirt (Front and Back), from scratch using specific measurements.

  • How to measure a Dress Form, or Yourself, or a Client, and draft a basic pattern.

  • Learn how to "True Darts", using a tracing wheel on pattern paper.

  • I have also included a very basic general concept of Pattern Grading.

  • ...and some additional bonus videos...

No prerequisites for the Course.

Tools needed: tape measure, pattern paper, pencil, ruler, tracing wheel, scissors, french curve and/or hip curve. A Dress Form would be helpful.


Why is it beneficial to learn how to draft by measurements?: Power. It’s empowering knowing that you can learn to make outfits that fit YOU, or being able to make design for a specific person.


This Course if the foundation for my other Pattern Making Courses: it all starts with drafting a basic bodice and skirt. From this Course you can then enroll in my Pattern Making 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.

I use a Dress Form as a "body" to measure" and use those measurements to draft a pattern(s).


My courses are about learning how to be a great fashion designer; whether you are a beginner student or a professional fashion designer, learning skills and techniques in designing is an ongoing process: there’s always something new to learn, even if you know basic fashion design techniques, building on top of that is essential to expand your knowledge of the industry at large.


Nowadays learning fashion designing online is such an amazing opportunity: you can study fashion in the comfort of your own home, at your own pace, having full lifetime access. Save on the cost of hight tuition, instead learn by watching these high quality videos, which you can rewind and watch over and over again, on your own schedule, at affordable cost.


Learning Fashion Sketching, and Fashion Draping and Pattern Making (Pattern Drafting) or if you want to explore The Business of Fashion, and learn the business side of fashion, or learning how to put a Fashion Collection together and learning the use of Fabrics and the Textile Industry, these Courses are an amazing opportunity to expand your knowledge, elevate you fashion skills, and add to your existing body of work.


Whether making clothes is a hobby of yours or a financial income generator, these courses empower you to build your confidence and make you a better designer. Regardless whether you are putting together your first fashion design portfolio, or build your fashion website, or learn how to market your fashion line, these courses give you the ability to accomplish all that especially because you will be saving on expensive tuition costs.

Meet Your Teacher

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Nino Via

Fashion Design, Instructor & Consultant

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For One-on-One Coaching/Tutoring/Consulting --> https://superpeer.com/ninovia

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Transcripts

1. 1 - Introduction. Who is this course for?: Hello everyone and welcome to how to draft basic bodice from scratch using specific measurements. Hi, my name is Nina via and I'm your instructor. I have a feeling that most of you are... well, a lot of you, I should say, I've taken my previous courses in pattern-making and draping and sketching, branding and etc. So I'm not going to get into too much of my profile. I graduated from FIT in New York City, worked in industry for many, many years and I was teaching at FIDM, the Fashion Institute in Los Angeles. And then fast-forward, I'm now teaching online courses in fashion designing for you guys. So here we are. Who is this course for? Well, quite a large variety of students. Let me explain. If you're just starting out in fashion designing, this is the foundation of pattern-making. Pattern-making is an essential technique and principles in designing. So this is the first step in creating a pattern, right? So if you're a student, a brand new student, who's venturing into the world of fashion designing. This is definitely for you. Now. If you were a little more advanced and you do have patterns, and you say, Well, I know how to manipulate patterns, but I want to make clothes for myself. Then I'm going to teach you how to take specific measurements, right? And then thirdly, if you have a significant other, a sister, a friend, a client, a customer who wants to have you design a specific garment for her, then you need to take measurements of your customer. I'm going to show you how to do that. And lastly, if you are one of those students who's been asking me for years now how to take measurements and create your own patterns from scratch. Well, this is definitely for you. So welcome. This whole process of measuring and transferring these measurements onto paper and all that. It's a very lengthy process, meaning it takes a long time. So obviously, I'm going to break it into four to five-minute videos so that you can easily digest the material. And remember, this is a video. If you don't get it the first time, pause, rewind, watch it again, watch it again until it's perfect. Also, there's a lot of numbers, math. So be patient. It might be a little challenging trying to figure out what is half of two and three-quarters and all that. So it's just trust me. Show you how to do all that stuff. 2. 2 - Tools needed.: Okay, I'm going to show you how to take specific measurements. Now, if you're measuring a dress form, obviously, I'll show you how to take specific measurements of your form. If you're measuring yourself, you might need an assistant or a friend to take measurements of yourself because it might be challenging to measure certain sides seams and shoulder seams and so on. So you might need somebody to help you measure yourself. And if you're measuring a customer, pretend that the form and the customer is one and the same. Again, I'm going to show you how to take measurements, what kind of measurements to take, and so on. N, We'll need tools, right? The first thing you'll need a tape measure, obviously, I'm going to show you how to use a tape measure to take specific measurements of the body, your body, or her body. You'll need a pencil. And for the purpose of this exercise, I might use a marker because it's a little darker and it's easier to see. When I'm drafting on paper and speaking paper, I'm going to use what's used. In the industry. We use this kind of paper. It's called dotted paper. It has numbers or dots or combination of both, makes it easier to find right angles and square lines and so on. But if you can find it, don't worry, it's very basically paper. Fabric stores usually carry dotted. paper, a ruler. This is a see-through ruler. You can see through it. And it'll help you in measuring and drafting. patterns also it bends, see, it's flexible. So it's easier to use a flexible ruler if you're measuring, say, a circular shape like an armhole for example. A French curve. French curves are used primarily for armhole. If there are variations of French curves. Also, this is the hip curve which I've used in my other classes. And you actually, if you notice, if I place these two, the French curve that I have and the hip curve, the two are the same shape for part of the French curve. So you can use this as well. All right, So these are the basic tools that you'll need to measure and draft your basic bodice. Okay? I'm going to show you how to draft a front bodice, back bodice and a front skirt and a back skirt. And if you're interested in a sleeve, I have a course specifically on sleeves. I highly recommend that you take the course. It does show you how to draft a basic sleeve from scratch, again, using specific measurements. And it's not just a basic sleeve, There's bell sleeves and puff sleeves and short sleeves with gathers and all fancy sleeves and so on. So take that course. Now. In that course, there's charts for different sizes, meaning that if you're working with a size four form, then you use size for measurements to draft the sleeve to match the batteries of a size four form makes sense, right? But if you need to make it bigger or smaller, that is a process called grading. I'm not gonna do any grading right now in this course, but it's not about grading. Not gonna touch screen right now. I will include a miniature video on a general concept of grading a size four bodies to a size six, size eight, size ten, and so on. I'll show you a little principle how that works. Alright, so let's get started with measuring our dress form, our customer, or yourself. 3. 3 - Starting the measuring process: (a) Front, CF, Bust, etc: Okay, so we're going to start by taking measurements of the body. And we're going to start, I'm going to measure this dress form. This is a size four transform. We're going to start by measuring certain parts. And after all this is done, we're going to end up with a pattern that looks like this. This is a one dart bodice sloper. And we're going to use this one dart to create a fitted bodice. We can then manipulate the dart in different directions or eliminated and so on. We're going to start by measuring what is known as H P S. If you see the word the letters HPS, it stands for High Point Shoulder. High Point Shoulder. And it's this corner right here where the shoulder meets the neck line. It is the highest point on the body. I'm going to start by taking your tape measure, measuring it over the bus to my waistline. If you have a tape on your form, the bottom of the tape is your waistline. So in my case and measures 17 inches. So the first measurement that I have is 17 inches. I'm going to label this measurement a, b. So I'm going to use this paper, this board and this dotted paper. You will use your table and your paper on your table. So I'm going to take this measurement 17 inches and draw a straight line. Measuring 17 inches, which is right there. Okay. So I'm going to label this A and B. Okay, next I'm going to measure across the shoulder right here. I'm going to take my tape measure from the center front neck line corner. I'm gonna take my tape measure and measure across to where the shoulder starts with the shoulder rim starts. And in my case, it is 6.5 inches. So that would be measurement. And number two is 6.5 inches, right? So now I'm gonna take my ruler, come across from a and measure 6.5 inches across, which is right there. Okay? So we have a b. Now we're going to create a, C. This is a C. I get that. Well, we have a and B and then we have a and c. So a, b, c, right? That's c right there. And I'm also going to square of ally, a few inches, 34 inches. As a guideline, you'll see why. In a second. Our third measurement is our center front is fairly simple. We'll take our tape measure from the neck line down center front to the waistline, in my case, and measures 14 and a quarter. And that's the third measurement. So that's measurement number three is 14 and a quarter. Okay? So from your B cross mark, we're going to measure up 14 and a quarter. And in my case, 14 and a quarter is right here. Right there. And that is, so we have a, B, C, Guess what? That is? D. So I'm going to mark this d. Okay. All right. So far so good. Okay. Next we're going to measure our bust, placing our tape measure from center front across the bus to the sightseeing. And in my case, it measures 9.5. So 9.5, That's our next measurement. Measurement number four is 9.5. And now watch this. I'm going to place that measurement here at the bottom. I don't want you thinking wait a minute. That's not the bus. The bus is here somewhere. Trust me. Trust the process. It'll work out. So I'm going to take 9.5 from B. You got to go across 9.5 is right there and also square a line about 1011 inches or so. Like that as a guideline, you'll see why. So we got a, B, C, D, this is E. And we have E. This is E. Okay? 4. 4 - Front (b) continued : Okay, our next measurement, number five, is measurement from this corner right here with the shoulder meets the arm. We're going to measure across the bust to center front at the waistline. So take your tape measure across the bust to center front at the waistline. For me it makes 17 inches. So number five is 17 inches. I'm going to take my ruler. And from center front measure FY 17 H's. On your ruler. Find 17 inches and where it lands on this guideline right there. We're going to draw a line like this. I'm going to label this G as in George. And I know what you're thinking. Wait a minute. A, B, C, D, E, F. What about F? We'll get to F in a minute. F is at the bottom here, but skip that. We'll get to this is B, G, 17 inches is B to G. Okay. That's B-G. Okay. Next is our shoulder seam. That's very simple. Basically from where the neck line meets the shoulder all the way to the ridge of the arm hole. I'm going to measure in my case and meshes five inches. Okay? So measurement number six is five inches for me. Okay. And so that will be right here. I'm going to take that five inch measurement. I'm going to take this ruler and met find 55 inches. And from G wherever it touches this AC line, that is my shoulder and looks like this. And also I'm going to square off a little line. So this is a square corner right there. And I'm going to label this. Trust me, it's all going to work. It's all going to fall into place, right? So that's G. G. All right. Next we're going to measure from center front to the apex to the bust point. From the center front to the apex is measurement right here. Now on a dress form on the body, you can see where the bus level is, but on a piece of paper, you really don't know where the bust level is. Is it here, here where I have to measure up? When I did here on this form, I measured from the waistline center front to the bust level. And in my case it is 7.5. So I took my ruler and from being the waistline measure up 7.5. And I put a little cross mark. And then I'm going to create this measurement right here, which in my case, from center front to the apex, it measures 3.5. So 3.5 goes right in here with your ruler squared, a line across 3.5, which is right over here. There's my 3.5 and I'm going to label this j, j, and k. Right? So that would be measurement number seven, which is 3.5 j k 3.5. 5. 5 - Front (c) continued: Next I'm going to take this measurement D J and divide it in half, find the halfway point between D and J. So my DJ measures seven inches divided in 7.5, divided by two is 3.5. I'm going to measure down. 3.5 is right here. And that's labeling. And then I'm going to square line across in a minute. Okay? Next, we got d j, d j, d j, d j, right, with divided in half, That's L, DJ divided in half. I've put a little pin on my form so I know where that L cross mark is because from that cross mark at center front, I'm going to measure across the chest, not the bus, the chest from center front to where the arm hole bridge is, in my case, is six and a quarter. So I'm gonna take my ruler from l, come across six and a quarter, and it's right there. That's six and a quarter right there. So that's my l m. Okay. Next we're going to measure at the waistline from center front, at the waistline, the bottom of the tape, from center front to the princess line. The Princess seen. This measurement right here, in my case, is two and three-quarters. Two and three-quarters. This is where the dye will end up the first leg of the dark. So two and three-quarters at the waistline be when I measure two and three-quarters. Two and three-quarters is right here. And that is my f. Then we skipped ABCDEF. Well, there it is, B, F. I'm going to erase these numbers so that I have space to write more numbers. Okay, our next measurement is from the shoulder, neck across all way to the side seam at the waistline. So take your tape measure from the shoulder, neck, measured like this to my sightseeing. The waistline is 17 and a quarter. 17 and a quarter. 17 and a quarter. So I'm going to take my find 17 and a quarter. I'm going to take the top of the ruler, place it on AI, and we're wherever 17 and a quarter touches this guideline. Right? Hold the ruler in place. Take your marker or pencil and draw a line like this. I, and this is like, like Mino. Next we're going to measure our sightseeing. Now, if your form has a plate, you don't want to measure all the way up to the plate. You want to come down a little bit, otherwise it would be very high, right? So I came down to about an inch or so. And when I measure my sightseeing and measures eight inches. So with your ruler, eight inches from n, measure up eight inches, inches and put it on a cross mark. And that's n o 6. 6 - Front (d) continued (Dart, part 1): Okay. So again, we, number 11 was 17 and a quarter, which was I n, this measurement from here to here. 17 and a quarter, right, we got that. And then n 20200 is your site's theme. In my case was eight inches. And then from n, we're going to measure out an inch and a quarter. Very simple, nothing. No major brain surgery here measure an inch and a quarter or I put a little cross mark. And that's N, O P as in Peter. Here we go P, right? And then from p to o is your actual site's theme. This is your sightseeing. Now, we established that the side seam is eight inches. So from o you're going to measure a inches. Make sure you got eight inches right there. And this is your S. S, as in sightseeing. It's slowly coming together. We're almost done. So see how eventually this will become this. You see that center front as your shoulder sightseeing. We don't really have a dark yet. In fact, we don't have a doubt yet. So we're about to create a gun, but how do we know the size of the die? Well, we're going to start by measuring our waist line. Now, in my case, my waistline, I mentioned it, it's six and three-quarters. So if I take six and three-quarters minus this portion right here from center front of the Princes, which is two and three-quarters. So six and three-quarters minus two and three-quarters lives we went for. In my case, it's the waistline minus this, in my case is four inches. So I'm going to measure four inches. However, I don't really know the direction. Does it go this way, this way, this way. So as a guideline, I'm going to take a ruler and from P, draw a line to f, just as a guideline, it's just to help us figure out the dark, just a very light guideline PDF. And that for measurement right here is what goes here. Okay, so now we have four inches right there, two and three-quarters, four inches. So we're about to create the dirt. 7. 7 - Front (e) continued (Dart, part 2): Okay, So we know the k is your apex, k is your apex the bust point, right? Stuff from the bust point, we draw the dye, the legs of the dark. Now, the dark never goes to the apex to that point. No, it always, you want to back away from the apex? Anywhere from half-inch, three-quarters, maybe one inch depending on the size of the form or the person that you're working with. I'm going to back away three quarters of an inch. I don't really know what direction. So watch this. I'm going to take my dark right here, which in my case is four inches half for that is two. I'm going to draw a guideline. This is just the guideline. Watch this. And then from K on that guideline from K back away, three-quarters of an inch or so. Okay. And my three-quarters is right there. And now I can draw, and I'll do it in red ink to show you the actual data itself. From K back away three-quarters. And there is leg number one and number two, we now have created a dart. So this point, we have two true a dart. We have to true the dart. If you don't know what that is, we'll get to that. Most darts. In fact, all darts have a certain shape. And to create that shape, it's called trueing a dart, where you close the legs of the dart and then create the shape of the waistline. In this case. We're almost done. Now, the last two things, couple of things to do is to create the neck line. We need a neck line shape here and the arm hole right here. So let's start with the neck line. With your French curve. You're going to place your French curve like so. And create your neck line. I'm gonna do it in red so you can see what I'm talking about. For the arm hole, we're going to take your French curve and we're going to place it like so, going from O to G and getting close to this n cross mark. So it will look something like, Okay, I'm going to make sure that this is squared off here. Okay? You don't want a point here sticking out. So that's pretty much it. Now, I'm going to show you at some point how to true a dart. And when it comes to drafting something from scratch, you always have to do a fitting either on the form or a live person or yourself. And there's always some tweaking here and there some adjustment. When you're measuring this kind of thing. Sometimes you're off by a quarter of an inch and three-eighths of an inch. And it affects one mesh and effect one measurement affects the others and so on. So you'll do a fitting in muslin or fabric, and then you make some adjustments. You try on the muslin. And you said, well, it's too tight here, it's too big here. And then you make this adjustment. You go back to your pattern and you fix that. Now, this will become a template, if you will. This will be a template. You see this pattern is something that you can use to create other patterns. This is just a basic slope or a blog. From this pattern, you can create other styles. All right, Next we're gonna do a back, and then we'll do a skirt. So stay tuned. 8. 8 - Measuring Back Bodice (a): Okay, So we are drafting the back. Now. The process of drafting the back is similar to drafting the front. So to avoid a boring class, I went ahead and started drafting some preliminary, some basic lines for you because it's very similar to the front. For example, if you remember in the front, we've measured from the high point right across the bus to the waistline. Same thing we'll do to the back. So from HPS High Point Shoulder where the neckline meets the shoulder I measured from that to the waistline. In my case, a measures 17 and a quarter. So I took my ruler and I've mentioned 17 and a quarter. And I'm, a and b, just like I did in the front. Then secondly, what we did, we went from a to C. A to C. What is that? That is this top shoulder section right here from where the shoulder meets the shoulder seam. The ridge of the arm hole, right. Measuring across to center back. So it looks like this. And in my case, and measure seven and a quarter. So again, I took my ruler and measure seven and a quarter, right? Cross mark. So it's a to C and then a square, a line downward, but 34 inches of soil. Okay. Now at the bottom of the waistline, this measurement right here is the back measurement, which is from center back to the side seam. Think of it like a bra strap, right? So which is right below the arm hole, somewhere like an inch or so below from center back to decide seem in my case and measures eight inches, measure eight inches across. Cross mark becomes B, e and squirt align up 10-11 inches or so. Okay. So far, so good. Good. 9. 9 - Back Bodice (b) continued: Okay, next I'm going to measure my center back. Very simple, easy. Take your tape measure from the neck line. Center back to the waistline is 16 and a quarter. Ruler measure from the base, right from your waistline measure up 16 and a quarter or wherever you sent her back is and put a little cross mark. And I'm going to label this D as in David. Okay, next we're going to measure the back neck line, the back neck. With your tape measure. We're going to measure from center back from Center back to the shoulder seam. And when you take your tape measure like so from center back to the shoulder seam two and three-quarters. So again, I took my ruler and measure two and three-quarters is right here. And I'm going to label that. Okay. Next, going to measure from your shoulder arm hole corner with the shoulder meets the arm will take your tape measure and come across to the center back at the waistline. So from this corner across the back to the waistline, a simple back in my measurement is 17 inches. So this is a little tricky. So with your ruler, measure 17, find your 17 on your ruler or whatever your number is, right? And from this corner right here, you're going to place your ruler like this until it touches this line right here, this cross line right here. So again, from here, 17, There it is. There's my 17 cross mark right here. I'm going to draw a line right across from the center bank waste to this guideline right here. And a, B, C, D, E, F, G. 10. 10 - Back Bodice (c) continued: Next we're going to measure the shoulder, the actual shoulder seen right from the neckline to this arm, Oak Ridge. And the shoulder seam is five inches right now. The shoulder in the front is fine. The shoulder in the back must be fine. In other words, imagine if the shoulder of the front, shoulder of the bank didn't match and have a problem. So there has to be the same. This was five in the front, would be five in the back because we take your ruler, placed it from F through G, gonna go through a cross G and mesh and find five inches, right? So from f through G and stop at five, which will be just outside of that G cross mark slightly. And I'm going to call that h. Okay, next, I'm going to work on creating the neck line. And I'm going to start into Institute. It's a two-step process. First you got to take your ruler and create a square line. A square line meets at a 90 degree angle. This is a 90 degree angle right there. And then you'll also take your ruler. And from D cross mark, you're going to draw a line across like this. So you'll end up with that. And eventually we'll take your French curve and shape the neck line. So it's a rounded shape for now, let's leave it the way it is. We'll get back to this. Okay, next we're going to measure the waistline from the center back to the princess seam. So tape measure center back to princess seam. That's two and three-quarters. Come over here right at the waistline from the measure two and three-quarters to cross mark. And I'm going to label that. I 11. 11 - Back Bodice (d) continued: Okay, next we're going to measure our waistline. But we have to remember that ultimately there will be a dart at the waistline. Usually a dart for the back is about an inch and a quarter, maybe an inch and a half, somewhere in there. I'm going to use one and a quarter. So if I measure my center back to my side seam at the waist, right? Five and three-quarters plus and an inch and a quarter for the dart, right. That totals to seven inches. In my case. It's that measurement, the waistline plus your dart, quarter inch and a half. Whatever you however whatever size you're working on. So in my case it is seven inches, so it come across here, measure seven inches with my ruler approved cross mark. And I'm going to label that j. Okay, next we're going to create the dart. Now, in my case, as I mentioned a second ago, It's an inch and a quarter. So from this, I cross mark, I'm going to measure one and a quarter full cross mark. This will be my dart. Normally the dart is that the direction of the dart is perpendicular to the waistline. So if I take my ruler and I place it like this on the waistline, and I draw a guideline in the middle. Like this, right? Usually, the measurement that we use in the industry for a backdoor is about seven inches or so, give and take a quarter of an inch or so, but seven inches is a standard measurement. So I'm going to measure seven inches up from the waistline. And seven inches in my case is right here. And then I'll draw the legs of the darts. You can see the dart. There's my dart, which again is one and a quarter or so. Okay. Okay. Next, I'm going to work on the side seam. As I mentioned earlier, the side seam of the back must match, match. The side seam of the front, right in the front, if my side seam was eight inches. So guess what? The same thing applies to the back. Eight inches. Find your ruler Eight inches on your ruler, right? And you're going to start here at J. For me, it's eight inches. And wherever it touches this guideline right there, place your ruler like that. Eight inches here, touches there, and here is my sightseeing. Again, double check to make sure that the measurements are the same. 12. 12 - Back Bodice (e) continued: Okay, next we're going to work on creating our arm hole and using the French curve. It'll look something like this, but we're missing one measurement an important measurement, which is the cross section ... cross back. Right here. We need to know what that measurement is. It's kind of important. So you got to come down to about four inches from the neck line. But four inches or so. And at that cross mark, you're going to measure across from center back to the arm hole. So from center back to the arm hole for me is 6.5 inches. So I'm gonna come down from the neck from the neck line, measure four inches and come across 6.5. Let's see. 6.5 is right here. Put a little cross mark like that. Because now I'm gonna take my French curve and place it from the sightseeing under the arm. So touching this cross mark to h, the outer cross mark, it look like this. Hold it in place. And your French curve, you're going to draw your arm hole. There's your arm hole. The next thing, the last thing we will do here is the neck line of the back it needs to be curved. Obviously, you can't leave it at a corner. I'm going to use this curvature right here to create a nice curve that will look like this. Okay? It might need to be adjusted a little bit, but basically that's the neckline of the back. And I think that's about it for now. Okay. Next is the skirt. 13. 13 - Measuring the Skirt (a): Alright, let's draft a skirt. I'm going to use the measurement of my form. You will use the measurements of your form or yourself or your client ...whatever. So in the bodice, we drafted the front first and then the back. Well, for the skirt, we go into both of them front and back at the same time. In fact, they will be joined together at the side seam and then we'll separate the front from the back. And speaking of side seam, I'm going to start with that. I'm going to start by creating the side seam first. And that is really the length of your skirt. What length is your skirt? Any length you choose. I make my 16 inches. You can make yours 19,20,22. It doesn't matter. This is just a basic pattern and basic sloper, basic block, a basic template whether you want to call it , it's a basic pattern. So I measure 16 inches with my ruler. I mentioned 16 inches and I'm going to label this A and B. Okay. Next we're going to establish the hip level. What does that mean? The hip level on a form on a body is the widest the widest part of the form of the body. Notice how the body is narrow at the waist and it goes wider here. Well, the hip level is the widest part of your body. So normally a standard measurement for the hip level is seven inches. In other words, if I measured down seven inches from my waistline, measure down seven inches, that's pretty much where your hip level would be. So I took a piece of elastic here just to show you where my hip levels is the widest part of the body as you can see. So when I measure down from my waistline, it is about seven inches. So I take my ruler. And from the waistline measured down seven inches, and I'm going to label that C, and that is my hip level. The bottom of the skirt is your hem line. It's straight across and it's parallel to the floor, right? That's the bottom of the skirt. Next, I'm going to create my center back. Center back. the way I'm going to do that, I'm going to... measure. I'm going to measure from the side seam. Side seam, going to measure to center back from side seam to center back whatever that measurement is. Take your tape measure from the side seam to Center Back, in my case is nine inches. I'm going to measure at the hip level, right hip level, nine inches across and draw my center back. 14. 14 - Measuring the Skirt (b): Okay, so there's my center back CB for center back. I'll do the same thing for the front, right. So from the side seam to center front, at the hip level. Sides seam to center front is 8.5. Want to come over here and measure from the side seam 8.5 and that'll be my center front. Okay. Okay. So there's my hip level, right side seam to center front. There's my center front. I'm going to label that C, F for center front. As you can see, what I'm doing, I'm creating a box. And in fact, I'm going to connect these top lines right now. And it'll be a box, the front and the back. Okay. So there's my box right. Now. The way our bodies are made, designed is that the back is slightly lower than the front at the waistline. You can see it on this form, the waistline slightly drops at center back about a half-inch or so. So I'm gonna come down from the waistline. I'm going to measure a half inch and put a little cross mark. This will be my new waistline right there. Okay. So we have this box, right? So ...our body is not a box shape, right? we have shape... in the back area. How do we take a two dimensional piece of paper or fabric, and turn it into a three-dimensional shape. Darts, we have to create some darts. We have to design establish darts. Now you can have one dart in the front, one dart in a back, or a two darts in the front and two darts in the back. I'm going to have two darts in the front and two darts in the back. The first dart lines up with your princess seam, your princess line. So from center front, we're going to measure this waistline... right here. And that's where our first dart will be. 15. 15 - Measuring the Skirt (c): So my measurement from center front to the first princess line is two and three-quarters. So from the center front, measure two and three-quarters and put a little cross mark. And the first dart will be a half-inch dark. So I'm going to measure half inches right here. That will become a dart in a minute. I'm going to measure two inches between the first and the second dart. So between the first and the second dart, I'm going to measure two inches right here, two inches space. And then create a second dart, also a half-inch. Okay, So it's the first dart. It's not done yet, obviously, Second dart. Okay, so I'm going to have two darts here, half-inch, half-inch, that's one inch. One inch. Now, my waistline is 6.5 plus one inch that's 7.5. So I'm going to measure 7.5 on my dotted paper. 7.5 is right here. And that's where my side seam will be. see, I'm going to take my hip curve in a minute and create this shape, this curvature right here. Now, if this is confusing, you look at it this way. This is 6.5, right? If you close these darts, this has to equal 6.5, right? If you close these dark and you add this plus this, plus this must equal this. Now I'm going to do the same thing for the back. I'm going to create two darts for the back. Similarly to what we did in the front we're doing in the back from Center Back, we're going to measure to where that princess line is, the Princess seam right here. Take this measurement, put it right there, leave a certain space and then create a second dart center back to princess line, right? Center back at the waistline to the princess line, princess seam right here, put a cross mark. I'm going to make, make my back darts one inch each, instead of a half-inch, they're slightly different. One inch for the back. Right. So here's my first dart leave a space and then a second dart and then onto the side seam. Okay. 16. 16 - Measuring the Skirt (d): Okay, So let's create these darts now. Darts are straight, they are parallel to center back for the back and they're parallel to center front for the front. If I find the center of the dart and I draw a guide line like this. I use my pencil to find the center of this dart and find the center of the other dart. Okay? Do the same thing for the front. Okay? Now, there's a standard measurement (which varies), but this is a standard measurement that you can use in the industry. We use 3.5 is the length of the front dart. It's 3.5 for the front. 5.5 for the back, 3.5 and 5.5. How do we do that? From the top of the waistline, measured down 3.5, which is right here. And the same thing here, 3.5 is right here. Alright? I'm gonna use the marker so you can see what the dart looks like. And here's my dart. And for the back is 5.5 And then create the legs of the dart. Okay, 3.5, and 5.5, there's our darts. The last thing to do is to true the darts. Now we haven't talked about trueing darts. We didn't true the darts for the bodice or for the skirt. So now I'm going to show you how to true a darts before we true the darts One final thing on the skirt is we have to create our side seam the shape of the side seam using our hip curve. So we place the hip curve like this. So it goes from the side seam at the waistline and it blends into the side seam of the dotted paper. So it'll look like this. This is the side seam on the skirt. Now watch, I'm going to flip my hip curve over. And, now most of these hip curves have numbers on, on both sides. In other words, if I have say 11.5 here at the hip level, when I flip it over, there's 11.5 at the hip level so I can have an exact perfect replica of my front side seam in the back side seam are the same. Now, all of this gets true... when it's all done, there'll be a certain shape to it and we'll get to that next. 17. 17 - Measuring the Skirt (e): And once we true all the darts for the skirt part, the skirt front will look like this. There's a certain shape to it, and the back also has a certain shape to it once we true the darts correctly. Okay, One final note. I mentioned that the back at the waist drops, the body just lowers at the back, right? But eventually when it gets to this side seam, it comes back to meet the front side seam. In other words, when you have the front and the back, Right, the side seams have to match, they have to match. You have to match, right? When you're sewing a skirt the side seams have to match. So you might have to make some adjustments. In other words, this curve might go up, up here so that the waist side seam on the front and the waist side in the back are exactly the same point and they meet, okay. 18. 18 - True the Darts: Okay, I'm going to show you how to true a dart, and I'm going to show you a little video from my pattern-making classes. So here we go. Let's take a look. And there is new Dart. Next. I take one leg, the first leg of the dart, the one closer to center front. I'm going to crease it and fold it over to meet the other length, like so. And you seeing my tracing wheel, I'm going to go over the waistline right through all the layers of the paper, of the dotted paper like so. And when I open it up, it will look like that. You can see these little tiny holes right there that the tracing wheel made. Okay, So using my French curve, I'm going to connect all those little tiny holes left by the tracing wheel. And there's a certain slight shape to it. So now we have a new pattern with one dart. I have stapled my pattern, my dotted paper pattern, to manila. And I'm going to cut it out. I'm going to use my awl or a push pin to mark the apex and the vanishing point. Make sure you don't hurt yourself. This is sharp. And then using my notcher, I'm going to notch the legs of the dart. We can do it this way. And I've seen it also used this way where you can see the legs of the dart and match it. And now we have a new one dart sloper. 19. 19 - Making a "longer" bodice (Fisheye Darts).: Have you ever wanted to make a pattern longer, meaning longer than just stopping at the waist instead of stopping here, let's say you wanted to make a jacket or coat, right? How do you do that? So some students, some beginner students, make this mistake. They'll say, Well, all you have to do is just make the side seam longer and the center front longer. And there it is. You got, you made it longer, right? Wrong! The body doesn't go like this, right? Look, the body comes down to the waist and then goes out. So it comes in at the way it goes out because you got the hips, right. So we cannot do this. This is not the way to do it. In a way, what you have to do is you have to sort of add the skirt portion, a skirt part to it where you have your hip. Right? So it would be something like this. Now the problem with this is if you don't have any darts if you don't have any darts, you'll have a lot of loose fabric here. It's very baggy, right? So if you wanted something fitted, what you have to do is you have to introduce what is known as fisheye darts. Fisheye darts, It is basically two darts coming together. Now we get into pattern-making techniques and principles. So I invite you to enroll in my pattern making classes. Alright. 20. 20 - A simple general concept of Pattern Grading.: So I've mentioned to you the word Grading. The process of Grading. Grading is the process of taking a size four and making it into a size 6, 8, 10, 12 and so on, making it bigger and smaller. It's called Grading. It's a very precise, very complex process. I'm not going to get into it now, but I'm going to show you a video that I put together for my YouTube channel, which will give you the basic concept of grading and how it works so that you can apply it to your pattern-making skills. Okay, so here's the video. So I get this question. A lot. Many students e-mail me and they say, How do I make my pattern bigger or smaller? How do we, how do I expand my pattern? How do we increase the size of it or decrease the size of it? So it all starts with the center of the pattern, which is the apex, right? We use a process called Grading. Grading is when you take a size eight and make it into a size 10, 12, 14 and so on, and decrease to size six and four, and two and so on. Grading is a very precise technique and it takes years to really master the technique and it's very complex. So I'm not going to get into it right now. I'm just going to give you the general idea. If you can get this principle that I'm explained to you, you can actually do it on your pattern without having to know grading down to the 16th of an inch. The center of the pattern is the apex. So which means that everything expands from the apex. So for example, let's say for the purpose of this exercise that we want to make the pattern one inch bigger all the way around. So from the center, right. What is this? This is center front. We will move center front in this direction, half-inch and the side seam in this direction, half inch and half inch and half inch down. Let me explain. So if we move center front half inch in this direction and we move the side seam over half inch in this direction. And the waistline again. Same thing, half inch in this direction and the shoulder, same thing. And then we have to adjust we have to readjust the arm hole and all that. But you see how we have expanded the size of our pattern. And to make it smaller, you do the same thing only in the opposite direction. We make it, we bring it in towards the center. So again, the apex is the center of your pattern. So everything starts from the apex. When you expand a pattern, when you increase the pattern, you go from the apex in all different directions. So if we add a half inch here, half-inch, half-inch is one inch, half inch and halfway just one inch. We made the pattern one inch bigger all the way around. Now this is a very general, very, very simple way of explaining the process of grading. Again, this is a very technical, very exact, very precise technique. So it takes time to learn it, to mastery, to practice it. So this is a general idea how to adjust the size of your pattern. Okay? 21. 21 - Working at Ralph Lauren - story time.: So I'm going to leave you with a little story, story time. When I was working at Ralph Lauren. It's a cute little story, It's Educational, a little philosophical, listen. So when I was working at Ralph Lauren, we had weekly meetings and fitting on a model. Model would come in, we would try on the latest samples jackets, dress. And so on. One day we had this new jacket and the model puts it on. And Ralph says: "That lapel should be an eighth of an inch smaller". I was so young and naive. I didn't know. I'm thinking, well, an eighth of an inch. Who's going to know the difference? An eighth of an inch, right? Anyway. So I took notes, went back to the sample room, told the tailors and the seamstress what to, what to do and so on. Fast-forward. Many, many years later, I am teaching at the Fashion Institute one day. And in my classroom, I got my 17, 18 students around me, my table. I'm doing a demo and I'm telling them this story. And I told him that sometimes a little difference, like an eighth of an inch makes a difference between good and great. Anyway, so I did my demo, I tell the story, they got back to their desks and they continue with their work. I'm walking around the classroom to see how they're doing. And one student, this one girl, was writing something on her hand. She's writing something and I'm going: "What are you doing?" And she showed it to me and it said, "the difference between good and great is an eighth of an inch". So pay attention to details. Sometimes the difference between good and great, it's an eighth of an inch. 22. 22 - Conclusion: Well, I hope you have enjoyed this course. Have any questions? Email me, I answer all my e-mails, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and I will see you in the next course. "Ci vediamo in classe" (see you in class). Ciao. 23. Bonus Lecture: FAQs, and other "goodies", etc.: Hello everyone. In this bonus video, I'm going to answer the most frequently asked questions that I get from you guys, like supplies. When do I get my supplies from whatever gets scissors and muslin paper and so on. How do I get addressed for them when we get to dress form? And what's a good textbook to use e.g. so I'm going to answer all those questions for you. So when it comes to supplies, the company that I use, and it's a great, great, great company, is called French European Inc. www.frencheuropeanink.com. They have every supply, every item you can imagine for fashion designing, for draping, for pattern-making and so on. So check them out. Including forums, yes, including dress forums. When it comes to textbook, this is a great textbook for pattern-making. It's called pattern-making profession designed by Helen Joseph Armstrong. I highly recommend it. Okay. So that's that on supplies, dress forms, textbook. So, okay, moving right along, what is the first course that I should start with? What is the order that I should take your courses in? Or another way of saying it is, I love fashion designing. How do I start? Where do I start? Right? So I'm going to answer your question like this. You could divide the industry, the fashion industry, into two areas that co-exist. One is the creative aspects of the industry, and another is the business aspect. And the two have to work together. If you're in the creative aspect, meaning if you'd like to sketch and paint and draw, I would say start with sketching, sketching classes and the draping classes and the pattern-making classes, which there are quite a few, as well as the fabric course, which is really quite an intense course. But if you say, well, you know what, I'm not really very artistic. I liked the business part. I like to buy and sell fashion and social media. Then the course is to take would be the business of fashion. That's the title of the course, which is, as the title says, it's about the business side, right? The financial aspect, buying and selling. Then there's also marketing and branding. Have you ever wanted to draft? A basic bar is basic pattern from scratch, using specific measurements to fit your form, to fit yourself, to fit a customer well. In this course, I'm going to show you how to do that. I'm going to show you how to measure a body so that you can create and draft a basic bodice, front and back, and a skirt as well. But there's one course which is how to create a fashion collection and launch your own brand. Which is really an overall picture of the whole process from beginning to end, meaning from the inception, from your ideas and mood boards and sketching and some pattern-making and draping onto production, manufacturing, some of the business of fascism, branding and marketing and so on. That will give you an overall picture of the industry runs. It'll give you a good idea, maybe which way to go, which way to start, how to start the process of taking these courses and learning about the fashion designing process. Okay. How did I get started in fashion design? I get asked that question many times. Well, let's start with the fact that I was born and raised in Rome, Italy. So I was surrounded by art and history and beauty. I mean, wherever you turn in Rome, There's beauty like fountains, e.g. such as the Trevi Fountain, where the famous movie like Dolce Vita by Federico Fellini was shot with Marcelo Master Yan. And the beautiful and either Egbert and of course, architectural wonders like the Colosseum and frescoes. Rama kept bell logic that I was always good in. I was drawing and sketching and painting. When I was 13 years old, my parents immigrated to New York and I eventually attended one of the best fashion design schools in the world, FIT Fashion Institute of Technology, fashioned by day and yes, music at night. I was in Iraq. After graduating from FIT, I worked at Ralph Lauren and we had the best Italian tailors in the world who share with me knowledge and skills and wisdom from the old school, which I incorporate in my classes. My mom was a seamstress. She was always working on some project or another, either making something for myself and my brother or working for a factory sewing clothes. So I looked at her sewing machine as a toy and I started playing around with it. When my mom passed away. She left me her fashion design homework notebook from when she went to school in Italy, something I will always treasure because it's full of inspiring information not available in any textbook or school. After working in the industry for many years and teaching at FID m, the Fashion Institute in Los Angeles. I decided to start sharing my knowledge and experience online, creating fashion premier Academy, where I teach courses on sketching and draping and pattern-making, branding and marketing, textiles and board. I also have a YouTube channel where I answer all my students questions. So I look forward to answering more of your questions or senior on Zoom. She been Yammer in classic Ciao. Fashion can be a form of self-expression, of fun and creativity and can be a vehicle for you to make a difference in the world. But what if you're lacking the resources to grow? Did you know that Samsung has a fashion division? Yep, they do. Their vision is to support and empower new designers and companies that want to grow and expand. As a consultant with Samsung, I am positioned to introduce new brands to Samsung's resources. The possibility to elevate your brand to a whole new level. When I was working at Ralph Lauren, we had weekly meetings and fitting on a model. Model would come in, we would try on the latest samples, jackets, dress. And so on. One day we had this new jacket and the model puts it on. And Ralph says that lapel should be an eighth of an inch smaller. I was so young and naive. I didn't know. I'm thinking, well, an eighth of an inch. Who's going to know the difference? An eighth of an inch, right? Anyway. So took notes, went back to the sample room till the tailors, seamstresses what to, what to do and so on. Fast-forward. Many, many years later, I am teaching at the Fashion Institute one day. In my classroom, I got my 17, 18 students around my, my table. I'm doing a demo and I'm telling them this story. And I told him that sometimes a little difference, like an eighth of an inch makes a difference between good and great. Anyway, so I do my demo, I tell the story, they go back to their desks and they continue with their work. And I'm walking around the classroom to see how they're doing. And one student, this one girl, was writing something on her hand. So she is writing something. What are you doing? And she showed it to me and it said, the difference between good and great is an eighth of an inch. Pay attention to details. Sometimes the difference between good and great, it's an eighth of an inch. And one more thing. For those of you who need one-on-one coaching and tutoring, I am available. That service is available. We can zoom, we can FaceTime. Or if you prefer, just a simple phone call, that'll work just as well. I would love to take you to the next level. So email me via admin.com and subscribe to my YouTube channel, you know, V01.