While I was attending life drawing class in college, the professor actually drew on the model in brightly colored grease pencils, showing the correlation between the bones, muscles, and body shape. Never did I think that, years later, I’d refer to these concepts as the basis for fitting alterations and fixes to garment construction.

As I work with women around the country at fitting workshops, I often see sleeves suffering from drag lines and hear complaints about jackets not staying in place as they’re worn. These problems are caused by shoulders that rotate forward. As a result, blouses and jackets tend to fall back on the shoulders. The wearer keeps adjusting the garment by pulling it forward, only to have it fall back in a few moments. I will show you how to alter a jacket that will fit a forward shoulder in this article from Threads #169.