men's tailoring

[elizabeth_mn]

Spent most of last week making a pair of modern dress pants for my man.  I started with a pretty basic Burda pattern with flat (unpleated) front and made a billion alterations before coming up with something that actually looked good.  I had to shorten the legs a lot because my man is all torso, plus I had issues with hip vs. waist sizes and the side front slant pocket gaping.

In addition to the weird and sometimes cryptic pattern directions, I used the book Classic Tailoring Techniques for a reference.  I also got a pair of (store-boughten) pants out of my HB's closet and used them as a reference.

Modern men's clothes are so ridiculously overly complicated.  Why do you really need to have double-welt pockets on your behind?  Especially if it's a suit, because then the coat covers them anyway.  Does the pants fly really need to have that button + hook + button and flappy thing triple-defense closure?  Why so many different fancy special fabrics on the insides?  Why do tailors use some of these techniques that are 3x as hard/time-consuming but produce an effect which is only marginally better than standard dressmaking practices?

My welt pockets ended up kind of crappy looking (I cannot believe I lost my photocopy of Kennith King's Threads article, No More Wobbly Welts.  I will never be able to make a nice double-welt again.).  But the front slant pockets looked great and didn't gape at all, thanks to silk organza interfacing, easing the seam onto twill tape, and making the seam slightly shorter than the facing behind it. The fly ended up so-so.  I am still not so good at flies.  I used the machine blind hem stitch on the hems and they look great.  Way better than I could ever do by hand.

For some reason, I just cannot get the man to stand still for photos of modern clothes, sigh.  But he said he liked the pants and I thought they looked pretty good.  The first one is always the hardest; now I feel ready to make another pair some time.

Comments

[christylee.livejournal.com]

hates the fittings not the vest ~L~