reflection on the making of my toile!

Due to drafting my own pattern, the books did not have making up intructions as such, as it comes back to the point the tutor made regarding the years of making experience tailors had in these historic periods and therefore knowledge to accompany this!

However.. through reading about how this century was a turning point of the tailoring industry through developing new styles and shapes of menswear, and different elements of the clothing in focus, I was able to work out how and where my toile pieces should be placed together. Equally.. by studying many different pictures, patterns and real garments as the tailors would have in period centuries, I was able to assess if the shape that I created looked right and would follow the silhouette of the body correctly. This did not particularly matter at this stage as long as it looked like the pattern; a dress coat, as it would be fitted correctly at the fitting and alterations would then be done!

We made our toiles in calico first to ensure the measurements taken were correct as only one group memeber has taken them all and it is simple to acidently take a wrong measurement, or write it against the wrong box etc! Calico is an extreamly cheap fabric and therefore was not taking money away from our budget by any means!

I successfully completed my jacket in time for my fitting and my shirt. I decided to leave the sleeves off of them both as 9 times out of 10 then sleeves are taken out anyway and replaced back in once the armhole is correct! Therefore I would pin these in once I had done so!

I created my collars, and had remembered from our leture in tailoring and from our fitting before that for a first fitting these are not sewn onto the garment often and are simply taken as separates and then pinned on to gain an insight of the lok once the neckline has been assessed!

I also decided that I would form the pleats on a stand after the first fitting once I knew the fit of the shirt, as the pleats are simply running down the centre front anyway!


I was therefore very pleased that my tight dealine, that I had very closely stuck to generally, had paid off and therefore at the fitting I could gain an insight into what James' coat shape would look like and how it would fit! Although, interestingly, I did still feel worried regarding choices I still had to make on decorational elements and how these would look as I could not visualise this; but that is an element of a second draft so therefore was not an issue and something I would just have to make decisions on and adapt if necessary! However I do not see this being a problem, as I did for this reason a large amount of research and consideration before creating my designs so as I would not be faced with a big problem of the decoration not fitting to the style of the jacket and working together. The only way I foresee, if I had of had any more time I could have reduced this worry was if I had of created a sample of my decoration and pinned in in place onto the calico toile in the place where it would be applied; however even then, it does not show particularly the same effect it will have on your top fabric and could still turn out to be completely different at the 2nd fitting (when out of top fabric and decorated) to how you imagined!