Body Duplicate vs Mannequin

I’ve been asked why a commercial mannequin is not ‘good enough’ when making clothes for yourself – or anybody else for that matter.
The quick and simple answer is that every body is different in shape and proportions. Having well fitting clothes means they need to fit your actual body. Clothes that fit badly are not stylish either!

I think these two photos will help you to see why I regard a body duplicate as essential. My commercial mannequin is a top of the range model; it adjusts at the bust, waist and hip in four places (and cost serious money).

I have adjusted the bust, waist and hips of the commercial mannequin to be the same measurement as on my body duplicate. However, as you can see if I fit clothes to the commercial mannequin they will not fit me! Whereas making clothes using the body duplicate is a dream.
Contact me if you'd like to have your own body duplicate model made.

The Coat Stage 9 – Coat Hem

The coat skirt is attached to the bodice- taking lots of care at the front where 2 horizontal and vertical seams meet at each front. Careful trimming and grading is needed here.
Pressing and hand finishing at the waist now complete. It’s looking and feeling very good. Wearing suitable shoes and a suitable length skirt my helpful husband has pinned up the hem measuring from the ground. Careful check made that it is at a flattering length for my legs too! Now to tack the hem up carefully and adjust the lining and tack that.

The Coat Stage 8 – the coat skirt lining

The bodice is completed and fitted on the duplicate body and then me , the real body- it’s looking good.

However, I realise that I prefer to line the skirt in a different way from the pattern! Oops, how have I overlooked this when I read through the pattern? Answer, I would never expect a coat pattern to have lining going right to the edge of a coat. Lesson learnt here – don’t take anything for granted!
I judge that as the finer lining goes to front edge of skirt front, it will not hang well. Hence I have decided to cut wool facings for the front skirt - fortunately I have spare material. The wool facings are attached to the lining- doing this seemed to involve a lot of calculation! The skirt lining is attached to wool coat skirt inserting the additional button loops, checking that they all protrude the same distance from the coat edge.

I’ve been asked what the duplicate body looks like without the toile on it – here it is!

Soon (tomorrow?!) I'll upload my commercial body model adjusted to my size so you can see the difference!

Coat Stage 6 – Inserting the sleeves

Poorly inserted sleeves can let down the finish of a garment, so I always take a lot of trouble with them!

I decided to shrink the top of the sleeves before inserting them into the coat bodice.
This is what the top of the sleeve looked like before shrinking

..and this is the top of the sleeve after shrinking

Sleeves inserted, The next stage is to make the sleeve heads and insert these. I used wadding sandwiched between silk as the lining.

I am very pleased with professional finish achieved.

I find it is always worth this effort this when inserting sleeves.

The sleeve lining is bound to the coat by hand at the armholes.

Coat - Stage 5: Beginning the Construction

Bodice front & back completed - pressing time approximately as long as machining time.
Loops hand made in black wool with a lucet - a personal touch.

The Coat- Stage 4 Cutting Out

The material needs preparing.
A sample of wool is steamed to check if it will shrink - answer no. Wool steamed to remove centre fold mark.
Interfacing checked for shrinking properties and sample fused to wool. Interfacing does not shrink, fuses well and gives the wool more structure and a good 'feel'.
Silk lining is pressed, it's going to be tricky to cut out, it slips so easily.

All pieces cut out using a cutting board and rotary cutter.
Markings transferred to material pieces using tailor tacks.
Interfacing fused to material.
Getting excited, construction can now start

The coat - stage 3 toile to pattern marking

This pattern has potential. Hence transferring the changes from the toile to the paper pattern will be useful. I have taken the toile to pieces, now the paper pattern is thus fully personalised. Cutting out is coming soon!