The dress form is more than a tool to check the fit of a garment. It’s also used as a design tool. Dress forms play a major role in a patternmaking technique the French call “le moulage”. Fabric is draped directly on the form and molded into a silhouette. Even though the moulage is used to create any kind of pattern-tailored or unstructured, it is absolutely indispensable when developing patterns for garments that feature draped details.

Julien Cristofoli demonstrates how to drape a bodice and then manipulates the darts to create a wrapped blouse front you can incorporate into your favorite blouse pattern for a new look. Then Cristofoli expands the technique to create a draped skirt front. These two pattern pieces can be used individually in combination with other patterns or joined to form a dress front.

From Threads #141