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Dream Collection by John Galliano for Christian Dior Spring Summer 1998

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Day Dress

c.1880

Kerry Taylor Auctions

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Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

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Cycling Suit

1896-1898

United States

The MET (Accession Number: 2009.300.532a–d)

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'Princess Ondine' from 'Harry Big Boots : A fairytale for' Small Folke ', written and illustrated by Susan Elizabeth Gay, 1874.

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mind if I come over and behave somewhat like a scared animal before I adjust

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The best compliment is to accept someone with whatever they have.

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Dress

c. 1890

Grand Rapids Public Museum

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Woman's Evening Dress: Bodice and Skirt

c. 1886-1887

Artist/maker unknown, American

Worn by Mrs. Ernest Fenollosa (American, 1858–1920)

Philadelphia Museum of Art

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Page from an album of fabric samples from the 1810s/1820s, English

From the Victoria & Albert Museum

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Costume Parisien Fashion Plate, 1800

From Paris Musees, les Musees de la Ville de Paris

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Don't worry, I just need an ibuprofen.

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Go piss girl

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Draping Final Project - Fall 2024

The first time I ripped a piece of muslin for draping, I had no idea what I was getting into. The corners were supposed to be right angles, and I was supposed to know where to tug and pull the fabric to manipulate those angles into place. I remember tugging and pulling at that fabric for what felt like ages, lining it up with a square ruler, and tugging and pulling the faulty corners some more. I remember thinking to myself, “this is the first step. If I can’t get the first step right, then what am I doing?”

Over the course of the semester, I continued having problems with manipulating the muslin just so to produce right angles, darts, smooth shapes, perfect drapes, etc. To this day, I don’t think I could claim that I have an easy time with draping. That being said — I did feel like my projects overall fit better than they did with drafting, and I enjoyed the process of molding a shape through various folds and clips and pinches.

For our final project, we needed to drape a suit jacket. I chose the basic shawl jacket design, which includes a collar within the design, and got to work. I very specifically wanted a rectangular shape out of my design, and I think I achieved it pretty well!! Let me take you through the process.

Step one: Draping

The main two parts of this design that I really struggled draping were the collar and sleeve. I needed a lot of help from my instructor to add more length to the sleeve, to shift it around a bit, etc. The first sleeve I made pitched forward quite a bit — we had to pull it off and do several adjustments to give it a better hang value. Even by the end of the finished product, I wanted to shift things around more. The collar wasn’t as much of a struggle, but I did have problems figuring out how the shoulder/collar combo needed to be draped in order to work.

Step Two: Drafting

Drafting is the easiest step for me — the process of transferring the muslin information to the paper. Over the course of the semester I noticed I had a pattern of not bringing the neck point down low enough, but I didn’t need to worry too much about that with the jacket. The hardest thing to transfer accurately to paper was the fish-eye chest dart, but with a tracing wheel I was able to get it placed well. I also did not do a great job of marking my center front on my muslin in the first place, so figuring out where that went was a bit of a pain, though I figured it out in the end. From there I needed to draft facing and interfacing pieces.

Step Three: Sewing the Final Project

Luckily, this is not the first jacket I've ever sewn, so the sewing was not terribly difficult for me. The only part I really messed up on was understitching the entire collar -- well, that stitching ended up on top instead of on bottom.

I also wish I had ironed the entire thing a bit better, but overall I really like the fit, the flow, and the angled side dart! I think the silhouette turned out exactly how it did in my head, and for that I’m pretty glad.

I learned a lot over the course of this semester, and while draping still may not be my favorite — I’m excited to see what applications I find it most useful for.