Ashdown Sizing in Clothing

1. Auflage 2007
ISBN: 978-1-84569-258-2
Verlag: Elsevier Science & Techn.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 408 Seiten

Reihe: Woodhead Publishing Series in Textiles

The basic concepts behind sizing systems currently used in the manufacture of ready-to-wear garments were originally developed in the 19th century. These systems are frequently based on outdated anthropometric data, they lack standard labelling, and they generally do not accommodate the wide variations of body sizes and proportions that exist in the population. However, major technological improvements have made new population data available worldwide, with the potential to affect the future of sizing in many ways. New developments in computer-aided design and sophisticated mathematical and statistical methods of categorizing different body shapes can also contribute to the development of more effective sizing systems. This important book provides a critical appreciation of the key technological and scientific developments in sizing and their application.The first chapter in the book discusses the history of sizing systems and how this has affected the mass production of ready-to-wear clothing. Chapters two and three review methods for constructing new and adapting existing sizing systems, and the standardisation of national and international sizing systems. Marketing and fit models are reviewed in chapter four whilst chapter five presents an analysis of the grading process used to create size sets. Chapters six and seven discuss fit and sizing strategies in relation to function, and the communication of sizing. Mass customization and a discussion of material properties and their affect on sizing are addressed in chapters eight and nine. Military sizing and the aesthetics of sizing are detailed in chapters ten and eleven. The final chapter reviews the impact on sizing of production systems and specifications.Written by an international team of contributors, this book is an essential reference to researchers, designers, students and manufacturers in the clothing and fashion industry. - Provides a critical appreciation of key technological and scientific developments in sizing and their application - Discusses how developments in sizing affect the mass production of ready to wear clothing - Reviews methods of constructing new and adapting existing sizing systems

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ashdown, S.

Leseproben

1 History of sizing systems and ready-to-wear garments
W. Aldrich    Nottingham Trent University, UK 1.1 Introduction
From the middle of the nineteenth century, ready-to-wear clothing began to be available to the mass of the growing urban populations. The growth of the trade has been attributed to the development of the sewing machine and other industrial machine tools, but the expansion of the industry depended on a more vital factor, the development of standard clothing sizes.1 This chapter charts the complexities of applying body measurements to mass clothing construction through the previous centuries. Section 1.2 briefly describes the social, scientific and technical conditions that shaped the way that clothing was constructed before the nineteenth century and the emergence of standard units of measurement. Section 1.3 covers in some detail the early attempts to provide viable tables of body measurements and explains the growth of systematic pattern construction and early methods of grading, principally for men’s garments. Section 1.4 explains the factors that inhibited the growth of the mass production of womenswear. It describes the adoption and modification of tailor’s methods of sizing and pattern drafting for domestic use and the dressmaker trades, and also the growth of the commercial paper pattern trade. In Section 1.5 the more sophisticated methods of sizing and pattern construction for the growing ready-to-wear menswear trade and of the late nineteenth century are described and illustrated. Section 1.6 looks at the growing acceptance of ready-to-wear clothes as being of acceptable quality. It also discusses the social and fashion influences of the early twentieth century that not only changed the cut of women’s clothes but also facilitated the process of standard sizes and industrialised clothing methods to be established for the majority of the population. Section 1.7 describes efforts initiated in the latter part of the twentieth century, to develop some standardisation in sizing through body measurement surveys and the use of statistical methods. Finally, the chapter ends with a short reflective piece. 1.2 The emergence of sizing systems
1.2.1 Clothing construction before the nineteenth century
The origins of measurement standards can be traced back to the Middle Ages, and also to the enlightenment of the eighteenth century and the great interest in all fields of science and mathematics. However, systems of body sizes for clothing require more than stable units of measurement; they also have to be directly linked to methods of pattern construction. Little evidence of early attempts to systemise measurements and to apply them to pattern drafts can be found before the nineteenth century. During this period, men’s and women’s outdoor garments were generally similar; bespoke garments (made for individual customers) of varying quality were provided by tailors, who independently or with assistants completed the whole pattern-making, cutting and construction process in their shop. Ready-made garments of varying quality could be bought from clothiers who contracted work out to an emerging sweated labour force. In both trades only the foreman cutter was skilled and had regular employment. ‘In a Taylor’s Shop, there are always two Sorts of Workmen. Firft [First] the Foreman, who takes the Measure when the Mafter [Master] is out of the Way, cuts and finishes all the Work.… The next clafs [class], is the mere working Taylor; not one of them know how to cut out a Pair of Breeches; They are employed only to few [sew] the Seam to caft [cast] the Button Holes, and prepare the Work for the Finisher.… They are as numerous as Locufts [Locusts], are out of Bufinefs [Business] about three or four Months of the Year; and generally poor as rats. The House of Call runs away with all their earnings, and keeps them constantly in debt and want.’2 The need to produce batches of similar garments arose from the clothing of the army and the navy. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, regimental organisation began to take place; noblemen or wealthy landowners provided bodies of men for armed service to the Crown. They were paid ‘coat and conduct’ money, a levy for each man raised.3 Wars across Europe and colonial unrest during the eighteenth century resulted in the growth of standing armies and the need for large quantities of uniforms. These were provided by the clothier contractors; between 1769 and 1784, Richard Lowe, a sole supplier to the marines, delivered 127 245 garments.4 Lemire argued that, during the latter part of the eighteenth century, large numbers of men and women were very accustomed to buying clothes ready made up. Most of the clothes were bought from slop sellers who dealt in second-hand clothes, but who also sold cheap new ready-made clothes.5 Clothes before the nineteenth century were often created by taking a pattern shape directly from the body or were loose-fitting simple garments. Most of the patterns were made by mantua makers (women who made the simple garments) and were constructed by copying existing garments and adapting the shape. Tailors made the more complicated garments for men and women of means, such as breeches, coats and riding habits. Almost all tailors’ patterns were based on garment measurements. These were not units of measurement; the tailor used notched parchment strips, which were referred to as ‘the measure’ or ‘mefures [mesures] en papier’, to record the lengths and widths of a previous coat (Fig. 1.1); he then altered a pattern based on these notch markings. Creating well-fitting patterns by these means was difficult; they were seen as valuable and tailors were loath to divulge their practices. Few eighteenth-century tailors published pattern manuals. Two examples by French tailors that have survived illustrate small pattern shapes that a tailor would have to trace, to enlarge and then to adapt for different sizes. The tailor, De Garsault, included a pattern scale on the plates.6 1.1 Positions on the coat to be measured with a notched parchment measure giving the marked body positions (De Garsault, F.A. (1769), L’Art du Tailleur). By permission of the British Library, 67.i.l.(4). There is no doubt that tailors and dressmakers were attempting to use geometric shapes and ideas of proportion and scale in developing patterns during the eighteenth century, particularly for sizing cheaper clothing. The earliest British garment pattern book that appears to have survived was written for the benefit of Sunday school children at Hertingfordbury in 1789. The book contained plates of small-scale patterns for simple garments worn by the poor: ‘Patterns directions and Calculations, whereby the moft [most] Inexperienced may readily buy materials, cut out and value each Article of clothing of every Size, without the leaft [least] difficulty, and with the greateft [greatest] exactness’.7 The pattern book included illustrated plates of patterns, some of which had scaled sizes. In 1796 the introduction of a British tailor’s book on simple drafting by measurements claimed that ‘Patterns can be of little Service to any but Slop makers, where they have them from the fmalleft [smallest] Size to the largeft [largest] Figure upon proportional Scales’.8 It is the opinion of this author that the adoption of standard units of measurement by tailors at the beginning of the nineteenth century was the critical factor that generated the new ideas of applying measurements to theories of cutting. 1.2.2 Units of measurement
There are records of man attempting to standardise length in ancient civilisations in the Middle East where the manufacture of goods and commerce was developing. Small measurements were mainly related to the human body, the finger, palm, span, foot, cubit, step and fathom. In early Britain, the foot was the base for larger measurements, the pole, rod or measuring stick. As the length of the human foot varied, measuring sticks would differ from village to village. The Roman foot (pes), divided further into 12 unciae, was a different measurement from the ‘northern foot’ of the Saxons.9 In 1611, the French foot (pied) had eight different measurements. However, a measuring stick was a useful tool in that it could be divided into halves, quarters and thirds. As trading and commerce grew, the need for some standardisation of measurements was required. The inch (ynce) was known to the Saxons and, in Britain, the yard became an official standard of length in the twelfth century. Connor quoted from a thirteenth-century document: ‘It is ordained that three grains of barley dry and round do make an inch; twelve inches make a foot; three feet make a yard’.10 Standardisation of measurement did not occur in France until 1799; the unit, the metre, was based on the ten-millionth part of a quarter of the meridian. Although old measures continued to be used in many of the common trades, France declared in 1840 that it was against the law to use anything other than the decimal system. The metre became accepted as a standard measure across most of Europe but, despite recommendations in 1852 from a select committee of the House of Commons...