A recent industry forum hosted by the NSW Department of State and Regional Development reignited the national sizing standard debate. Ragtrader invited guest speaker Lois Hennes to put her thoughts on paper.
Having spent my entire working life in the fashion trade and mostly in education and training, for me, fashion design is as much about the people that create it and wear it as it is about the tools to achieve it. My lifelong mission is to continue to provide support to all three arenas through my skills and knowledge of pattern engineering.
I feel fashion’s energy is never more apparent than at this time, when the seasons change and the new collections are presented. I see enthusiastic women rushing in droves to the fitting rooms, motivated by the excitement created by new silhouettes and fresh new colours and fabrics. However, my heart skips a beat when I hear it sometimes said: “I absolutely love it, but the fit’s just not quite right!”
A major concern I have for the local fashion industry is related to what I have witnessed worldwide in design education in general: the gradual lessening of resources devoted to fundamental skills development in pattern making and how this translates into the fashion industry of the future.
It appears to me that applied anthropometry (taking measurements), block drafting and fitting play a very small role in some training institutions.
It seems that instead of constructing blocks from scratch, modifying blocks is mostly the order of the day and pre-determined blocks are used extensively, with students having very little knowledge of their origins. This is not to say that the skill of manipulating patterns to extend their usage is not a valid activity. Designers generally repeat a seasonal shape throughout a range.
There also seems to be a trend evolving that block making is regarded as historically complex and a time-consuming specialist skill, and as such is quickly heading for a place outside the general curriculum into the realm of expensive fee-for-service courses.
For young fashion designers who want to create their own designs and start their own businesses based on new and innovative silhouettes, I worry about the consequences of insufficient pattern making practice in training programs. The issues that I see for these graduates are far-reaching for the future of the industry unless some changes are initiated.
The issues range from simply what measurements will they use to what system will they follow to provide logical sequence and structure for analytical assessment and problem-solving purposes.
In the absence of published, up-to-date anthropometric data of the Australian female population, have graduates acquired sufficient skills in the ‘techniques of measuring the female form’ to measure and compile their own data for the market segment they choose to cater for?
If fashion graduates have trained in modifying pre-determined patterns without also studying systematic block drafting, how efficient and effective will they be in product development without an understanding of the internal workings of the pattern – the principles and concepts employed in the construction of the original block and the knowledge that in every original master block there are built-in control lines and measures for maintaining quality and consistency in patterns.
Comprehending this knowledge provides the pattern maker with the skills required for producing engineering feats for advanced design!
As a former pattern engineering teacher of some 40 years, I am aware that in the garment industry, products are only as good as the patterns they are made from.
These products must possess the capabilities of cut and fit for the bodies that are going to wear them. Be it couture or ready-to-wear, customised costumes for stage and theatre or volume manufactured garments for retail, all have their beginnings as an original master block or template regardless of how many times the master block has been copied and modified at a later stage.
I believe that design education needs to cover two major areas of pattern development – pattern engineering and pattern design. ‘Pattern engineering’ is needed in order to learn measurement taking, generic block drafting, fitting procedures and the making of additional blocks from the original master blocks; and ‘pattern design’ in order to learn the correct techniques in applying design to blocks, and toile testing of designs and sample making.
In parallel to pattern development, I believe training is also vital in the design and development of ‘pattern specifications’ – structuring and recording information relating to the entire pattern development process. It appears that students are supplied with generic specifications and fail to grasp the importance of developing ‘specs’ to serve the needs of the enterprise and those individuals engaged along the supply chain.
Lois Hennes is the co-author of The Fashion Design System – Pattern Engineering for the 21st Century. The system has been endorsed by by the Fashion Technicians Association of Australia and supported by the NSW Department of Industry and Investment, the Council of Textile and Fashion Industries of Australia, Fashion Group International of Sydney, Creative Industries Skills Council, Queensland University of Technology Creative Industries Precinct and the Textile Clothing & Fashion Association of Queensland.