This week’s piece belongs to the wife of a longtime patron. Her husband has been commissioning pieces from us for many years but when his wife had an upcoming event, she decided to commission a piece of her very own: a purple sport coat.
Fitting women for coats is always a greater challenge than with men. Breasts provide an additional dimension to tailoring that complicate rules that generally serve the masculine body quite well. Great care must be taken to address all of these angles, particularly on women with dramatic differences between bust and underbust. A man’s jacket generally only has a dart which draws the center in while tailoring on a woman is generally accomplished by means of a ‘princess’ seam. This seam divides the front of the jacket into two pieces. It also gives the jacket space in the bust while tapering in along the ribs and top of the chest and, with some customization, ensures a perfect fit.
With the rise of mass-production, most retail establishments have found that reducing the size range is a simple way to minimize production costs and maximize profits. However, given the decline in alterations and tailoring, ready-to-wear clothing is a great pitfall for women who find themselves outside the standard size range. As such, women desiring an adequate fit often find shopping an ordeal. One could spend hours going from store-to-store and trying on garments, only to walk away empty-handed or having settled for a passable but far from perfect fit.
As such, tailoring houses present themselves as an alternative –– or perhaps a return to the old ways — given that tailoring has existed for millennia longer than the current incarnation of the fashion industry. Houses like Trend offer patrons an opportunity to invest in clothing that is truly theirs while also providing the ability to exchange countless hours of wandering a mall for a few brief appointments in exchange for decades of wear.
