GARMENT FIT ESSENTIALS

Being an outstanding womenswear bespoke garment maker involves a few things: you have to develop a very healthy relationship with fit, the female body and impeccable finishing techniques.

I love fit. I’m obsessed with it.

I’m constantly learning how to make my patterns fit perfectly to a form and studying techniques that will give me the best finishes for my garments.

Now the Nigerian Asoebi space has more appreciation for drama than fit, we know this. However, there needs to be more appreciation for fit and finishing before drama can come into the equation. You cannot make a sloppy garment and cover it up with beading, appliqué and structure and then slap on a large cash tag to it. That’s not fair to your customers. It’s really sad that this has become a norm in the Nigerian bespoke space and we need to work on changing the narrative. 

Now as much as we have a large group of tailors who don’t pay much attention to some of these essentials, we still many designers who care a lot about impeccable garment construction. Asides the very top listers like Debola Sagoe and Lanre Da Silva, we also have those from our generation (I’m a millennial by the way) who are making a huge mark.

Designers like Veekee James, Tubo and Alonuko whom I absolutely love. I fell in love with both Tubo and Alonuko’s  brands for their appreciation of the female form and their corset fit.

I’m particularly a huge Alonuko fan. I feel like Alonuko is one of those brands that writes a love letter to her brides with her dresses. She absolutely inspires me and I’m sure a whole lot of other designers, not just for her delicate dresses but her brand as a whole. You can feel her dedication to creating dresses that express her heart for her craft and her brides. 

Ok, this isn’t an article about my love for Alonuko, we are talking about the importance of fit.

So back to our topic. 

One of the most important and obvious essentials for dressmaking is:

TAKING ACCURATE MEASUREMENTS 

This isn’t just about knowing how to measure a body but knowing the standards that have been proven to aid this process. Currently my go to text books for bespoke tailoring are Dress pattern designing and More Dress pattern designing both by Nathalie Bray. I also definitely cannot underplay the importance of  Pattern making for fashion design by Helen Joseph Armstrong. This was the book that introduced me to pattern making so it’s definitely a great resource to have as well.

The information I’ve gotten from Nathalie Bray has helped guide me in understanding certain standards when taking measurements. For example, hip depth measurement falls between 20 to 25cm. This now let’s you have a guide to balance off the measurements you take on a female form.

Another essential Fit element is:

EASE.

Garment ease cannot be overemphasized. Now I get it. We like tight clothing. But why? Honestly, why? You might think it’s cool but it really isn’t. Tight clothing don’t look as good as you think it is.

When a garment sits right on a body, it doesn’t create creases or tension as in the figure above where tightness creates tension. But when you stretch a fabric beyond it’s given stretch point, you see this tension.

Fitted clothing are not the same as tight clothing. When a garment is fitted, it seats well and comfortably on the figure. That’s what we should strive for. Clothing that fit right and don’t strangle the body.

Let your body breath please!

Moving on.

You must also understand BODY TYPES/ SHAPES AND PROPORTIONS as you strive to get your fit right.

Our bodies give the final say on what a pattern ends up as, not just the maths of pattern making. The maths is definitely very important and a strong foundation, one with which you cannot play with. If your pattern making foundation is shaky, problem Dey. However, you must understand that the clients body is the concluding factor. That is why you need to understand different body types as a bespoke fashion designer and how different fabric types and weights drape over the curves. 

Bespoke tailoring is about individuality. It is not about mass market figures or generalized size standards. It’s about catering to individual customers with unique bodies, personalities and needs. So if you haven’t started yet, get you study on with regards body shapes and proportions.

Now this next one, I know people will not agree but here it goes:

MAKING TOILES IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE 

You know that flex that Nigerian tailors do? A customer brings you fabric with a picture or a dress they got off Pinterest. 

The said picture is of a lady with an hour glass figure. 

You didn’t say anything .

Or maybe you even did. You told the customer that the dress won’t look as good on them as they think. The customer disagrees. They know it will look good on them.

They expect you to perform magic.

You give up the fight and collect their fabric. 

Next thing, after a few thoughts and all, you take pattern or scissors to fabric and cut. Then when your customer comes to pick up the dress, drama ensues and next thing you know, you’re trending on IG with the “why is the world so wicked” soundtrack attached to your work.

Don’t do that to yourself.

A toile is a garment made up of cheap cloth or fabric so alterations and experiments can be made before moving on to the fashion fabric.

Making toiles/garment samples is very important. This is where you can show your client say “Aunty, shey you can see this style is not fitting you?”

This is the process that helps you to reduce you margin of error as much as possible before you head on to the fashion fabric(Main fabric).

This will definitely increase your cost but bespoke tailoring was never meant to be a cheap service in the first place.

You have to toile your pattern, fit it on your client, be happy with the results before you think of moving on to your main fabric. I know this hasn’t been the norm but it needs to become the new normal.

Bespoke tailoring is a whole service experience. It’s no rush work.

If you want to be known as a meticulous designer, you must first create your clients full body slopper (that’s the pattern for their bodice, skirt and sleeve together using their personal measurements ), have then fit that before you move on to the design. This ensures that you have a perfect fitting slopper/ block first before going design crazy.

Does it sound too much ? Well, bespoke is supposed to be much.

I know some situations might make this part a bit tricky, maybe dealing with international clients or clients too far away to fit. I get that. But as long as this is part of your process, you may end up with enough experience where dealing with clients you may not be able to fit right away might not be much of a problem.

Finally,

ACCURATE COSTING

If you do not charge well, you will not be motivated to do all this work and research.

For a long time we’ve placed bespoke tailoring at the bottom of the Fashion service hill in Nigeria but that was never it’s place. It has always been a high cost service.

Bespoke tailoring is a premium service because it caters to the specific needs of a single customer, it is not cheap. We are the ones who took it out of its place and cheapened it. Well it’s high time we sent it back up.

I know a lot of customers will not be happy about this but as a bespoke fashion designer /tailor, you are not supposed to be struggling to make ends meet, you should be striving to create a very successful fashion business, one that doesn’t leave you in debt or with the habit of lying and dodging customer cause you collected too many clothes and now you’re running behind on delivery.

We need to stop letting desperation push us to settling for less. When you settle, you end up doing a disservice to your clients. You won’t give your best when you are fully aware that you’ve underpriced your service. And in worse cases, you’ll end up loosing certain clients because as far as they’re concerned, you might not really know what you’re doing that’s why you undercharge yourself.

So think about it. Fashion is a lot of things, and garment construction on it’s own requires a lot of experience, sound knowledge of impeccable fit and finishing, and the will to provide high end/ premium service always.

It’s not easy, but it’s a craft that refines even the designer.

Love your craft enough to invest in its most valuable asset.

YOU.

See you on the next one.

P.S

I’ll love to hear your thoughts in the comment section and will also enjoy answering any questions you might have.