RTW for Independent Designers

I have spent the last 50 years helping people create Bespoke patterns. During this time I have had people ask how to create RTW patterns for garments they wanted to sell. I have always warned them that just because a design fits one body doesn't mean it will fit anyone else.

One of my first exposures to this was during my adult education pattern design class in the 70s. I had a woman who had a twin sister. They shared a common RTW wardrobe where either sister could wear anything in their wardrobe including shoes. This student made a simple Medieval styled wedding dress for her sister. She wanted to see how she would look in it and was surprised to find she could not get into it.

The difference between Bespoke and RTW patterns is that Bespoke are made for the size and shape of a specific body. The process starts with the body the garment is going to be made for. The final step is to see the garment on that body. RTW patterns are made for a "general" body shape. The final step in the success of the design is when the garment is sold. The designer may never see the body or bodies wearing the garment.

My only personal experience with quasi-RTW is when I learned about quarter-scale fashion dolls at the turn of the century. I was intrigued to learn that the companies making these Vinyl dolls relied on very high quality standards to ensure that the body shapes and measurements for a given doll were rigidly maintained through out the mass production manufacturing process. I started to develop patterns for these dolls. I chose the dolls from three different companies. It was interesting to discover that some designs would work on all three dolls as seen in this photo of the Swirly Skirt popular in the 1970s. Other designs would only work on the doll from one specific company.

My work over the years has evolved from my desire to help people with issues they have about making patterns. I have neglected the issue of RTW. In my Fashion & Costume in Quarter Scale one of my goals is to demonstrate how body shapes vary. To illustrate this I show how to make quarter-scale Mini-Me dress forms of 13 models who I have personally measured and fit that are a "medium" size. They are all within 2" plus or minus of the Bust, Waist, and Hips of a commercial dress form I have. The idea is to allow people to try a given RTW design on different body shapes using these Mini-Mes as "fitting models."

Since the release of my book, Lindsey Watson, an Independent Designer of High Quality Horse Show Apparel, has asked for help with her RTW patterns. She had already been successfully working as a designer for over a dozen years.

Photo by Lindsey Watson	Photo by Shane Shiflet
Dr. Shana Huges on her horse Shipwrecked, wearing a Lindsey Watson custom shirt, at the 2023 Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration won the World Grand Championship in her class in front of 250,000 spectators.

The cowgirl shirts she makes have a very defined style including a full length sleeve, wide cuff, tall collar, etc. They are one-of-a-kind wearable art shirts because of the embellishments she applies to the shirts. These embellishments can take a month or more to create. Given that the women are paying several thousand dollars for a single shirt, the RTW shirts need to appear as close to custom fit as possible. She had two issues for which she was asking for help:

1. "I have very specific needs for my patterns such as the style, fit and sizing (for both my RTW and Bespoke pieces). My previous patterns simply did not offer me the ability to create pieces to fit those needs. In my situation, using a computer program to create patterns caused numerous problems with my finished garments. Instead of following natural contours of the body it made awkward angles causing a poor fit.
2. For my new RTW patterns I needed certain sizes. Being able to base the new set of patterns on already established sizes and scaling them up or down allowed that. This method is much faster than drafting new patterns, especially based on measurements without a dress form or live model."

With her first issue she had been making her patterns for shirts using a pattern design program which shall remain nameless. I had a similar experience when I was approached by a company making pattern design software that wanted to use my approach to pattern making. When they sent me sample files I found it was impossible to use their software to adjust the patterns for fit or design so I declined to work with them.

To develop her new RTW patterns in specific sizes I recommended using Silhouette America's free Studio Software. This software allows you to make your own patterns with very clear cut, easy to use functions as I describe in my CAPD classes. The software provides the functions necessary for complete control over the shape of your patterns and a scaling function for changing them to different sizes.

The screen shot above is of the Studio software for the Cameo Pro 24" by 24" cuttng mat. It shows our intial shirt pattern in quarter scale with patterns for two different collars, sleeves, and cuffs. The rectangles on the left are for laying out the desired pattern pieces to be scaled up to full size using the following sequence:

1. Move the desired pattern pieces to the layout rectangle.
2. Select to "Group" the layout rectangle.
3. Select the "Center on Cutting Mat" button.
4. Select the "Scale to 400%" function.
5. Select the "Send" function to print and cut the paper pattern or cut the fabric to be used.

Note that the print-and-cut equipment does not cut fabric on the fold so patterns are included for both the left and right sides. This can be done quickly using the "Mirror" function. Some of our initial work included the following which illustrates steps important in creating RTW patterns:

1. Select a Body Shape. I could not envision any of the models I had worked with being a "standard shape." Vogue patterns has been using general body shapes since 1914 and I already had a Mini-Me dress form from a Vogue fitting shell. I told Lindsey to look for a Vogue pattern that was close to the design she needed. She selected V9029 Misses' Blouse.
2. Adapt the Pattern. The pattern needed to be adjusted from a Princess seam to the shoulder to one to the armscye, the sleeve needed to be straight instead of full at the cuff, the cuff and collar needed to be taller. I did this and made a quarter-scale muslin prototype in quarter scale to test on my Vogue and the 13 other Mini-Mes.
3. Remove the Ease. This scared the bejesus out of me. But she was working with a knit that had enough stretch to accommodate different body shapes and enough body for her embellishments. She insisted on zero ease. When I followed her instructions and made a quarter-scale prototype out of the fabric she was using, I was shocked to see that the shirt looked custom-fitted on all but one of my fitting-models. She subsequently tested the full-size pattern to verify the fit, particularly for arm movement.
4. Determine Sizes. Lindsey used her previous experience and consulted with the woman who sells her shirts to come up with x-Small, Small, Medium, Large, and X-Large sizes. This is where the Studio software worked a dream using two scaling functions. One function scales the patterns by a percentage. The other function allows the patterns to be scaled by either width or length. For example her collars and cuffs needed to be scaled by length but not height.

This scaling capability led me to think about how Lindsey could create Made-to-Measure shirts for her private clients using easy to take bust, waist, hips, shoulder width, and center back length. The ability to create Made-to-Measure patterns from standard patterns gives Independent Designers a leg up on satisfying their customer base that cannot be duplicated by larger RTW companies.

Collaborating with Lindsey on her pattern needs has been a perfect opportunity for me to research and study how to create RTW patterns. And in Fashion & Costume in Quarter Scale I have instructions for how to create a Bespoke fit by Tracing Quarter-Scale Photographs. This can be useful for bodies that are too different for RTW or MTM patterns such as the gentleman with a 53" waist which I describe in my book. The process does not require an in-person fitting. The entire process can all be done through photographs.

Lindsey is giving me feedback on how the patterns are working for both her private clients and through her exclusive arrangement with Showgirls Apparel who travel to the events where these shirts are sold. My CAPD Classes directed at RTW and MTM are a direct response to our work together.

These classes will hopefully be useful to other Independent Designers as well. For those designers interested in giving it a try, I do have five free Studio files for a quarter-scale Mini-Me and Master Patterns that have been derived from the Vogue-14 fitting shell (V1004). They do not require the Silhouette America's print-and-cut equipment, just a regular desktop printer. To take a trial run, download the free Silhouette America Studio program and download the file.

The download includes five Studio files in a Zip folder. They are an upper & lower torso, with a waist to floor extension for creating a Mini-Me, see Making a Mini-Me. The Master Patterns include one file for the upper torso and one for the lower torso.