I’ve been working very hard trying to auto-generate custom-sized sewing patterns. Not just any custom-sized sewing patterns, but sloper sewing patterns. Oh, I hear you…what are sloper sewing patterns? Well, sloper sewing patterns are basically template sewing patterns that fashion designers use as a base template for their designs.
When you attend fashion design school you’re taught to draft basic templates. However, very few fashion designers ever reproduce those basic drafts. In real life a designer will create a set of sloper patterns at the beginning of their career and then use those templates to make their designs. In an even starker real-life situation, the designer will use slopers created by someone else. This is, particularly, the case if the designer secures a job at a manufacturing house. The “house” will have their own tried and tested slopers and the fashion designer will only be required to manipulate these slopers to format new designs.
Basic slopers are constructed according to specific body measurements and the visualization of this process is graphic: all measurements are points on a graph that are pinpointed according to a set of specific instructions for a particular sewing pattern, such as a fitted bodice, skirt or knit-fabric t-shirt.
Well, now that the explanations are out of the way and you can see that slopers are important (heheeee), let me go on to explain why I’ve gone to the trouble of creating slopers for various end uses. Of course, we all know that I’m crazy 😝 so that’s one reason, but the others are almost valid :
I want to create patterns that actually fit!
I want to create slopers that fashion designers can use to create garments in custom sizes for their clients.
I don’t believe that standard sizing is useful—no two bodies are the same. Each person should have the freedom to create a sewing pattern in their exact size that will actually fit them.
The question is am I right? Or am I nuts?
In answering this question consider that it takes me a day or more to write the code to produce just one custom-sized sloper.
Now for the actual idea :
Fashion designers and sewists can come to my sewing pattern generator and input their body measurements. The algorithm will produce a sloper sewing pattern for various use cases, such as t-shits, leggings, tracksuits, bodysuits, swimming costumes etc. The program makes a downloadable PDF sewing pattern sloper in the exact size of the measurements. The pattern can be printed out using Adobe Acrobat and altered into a range of designs.
What do you think? Is it useful?
What I’ve got so far :
Custom sewing pattern slopers
T-shirt
leggings
bodysuit
Baby’s tracksuit pants
The idea is to produce one new custom-sized sloper per week 🤣😝😁
All images are a combination of screenshots of my patterns and design ideas created using https://images.ai
It sounds complicated and sophisticated, if you can do it. I had an aunt once (Aunt Anna), who worked in the Manhattan Garment District. She was a pattern maker, someone who by hand actually made the patterns that other people worked from. I know it was a challenging, skilled (and well-paying job).
This would be the 21st century version of a pattern maker?
Pattern making is frustrating, but it’s getting a little easier with the help of AI. Thanks for reading @agmoore 😘😘😘