What role plays commercial patterns in fashion industry?

Answer 1

Development of Commercial patterns: Commercial patterns were first made in U.S.A in

the 1850's by Ebenezer Butterick who was a tailor. In the beginning they were crude patterns

in rough paper, for simple designs only. The first patterns were for men's and boys' clothing.

Patterns for women and children were also developed later and became available

commercially. You may have seen fashion magazines like Vogue, McCall's Pictorial,

Simplicity etc, and their pattern books.

Commercial patterns are usually done on tissue paper. Since tissue paper is not bulky, it

allows many pieces of pattern to be packed compactly in an envelope. In commercial patterns

seam allowances are included for safety. Patterns of established companies are usually

printed and marked clearly with straight grain lines, seam lines, cutting lines, darts, centre

lines and all the necessary construction details. Good patterns are carefully labelled with the

following information : the pattern size, name of each pattern (back, front, sleeve etc),

number of pieces to cut from each pattern piece etc In addition some companies provide

instruction sheets explaining the steps involved in using the pattern to cut out the garment,

transferring pattern markings, and constructing the garment.

In India there are very few concerns making paper patterns probably because there is not

much demand for them. Unlike in foreign countries we have the facility to get our clothes

custom tailored at fairly reasonable rates. Housewives and women who know a little bit of

tailoring prefer to make their own patterns rather than buying expensive ready made patterns.

This may be another .reason for the lack of demand for commercial pattern