Understanding Fashion Production: Your Production Skills – Your Skill Assignment

Assignment Instructions: Your Skill
Suggested time to complete: 60 minutes

Recruit a friend to help with this assignment. Have them put on a piece of clothing that is too large or fits poorly. Using straight pins, adjust the fit of the item until the side seams hang straight, the sleeves touch the base of the thumb, the hemline is parallel to the floor, and so on. Take “before” and “after” photos, or record a video of you doing the fitting while talking your way through the process. Hint: have your friend put the garment on inside-out so that you are pinning the seams.

To complete this assignment: Use the Upload link to add the before and after images of your fitted garment.

My Upload: This assignment was a tough one for me. I wouldn’t say that fashion design is my forte, so doing a full-on garment fitting felt daunting. The first step was simply acquiring the pins, which was harder than you’d think. I had to go on a manhunt at Target just to find safety pins (I figured this was the closest thing to straight pins available to me). My boyfriend kindly volunteered to be my model and he offered up one of his too-big white dress shirts as the subject.

I first attacked the side seams, folding them over about a half-inch on each side and pinning to make the fit slimmer. This really helped the appearance seem less baggy. Then I wanted to make sure the sleeves touched the base of the thumb, as noted in the assignment description. This required folding over the seam and pinning at the shoulder. The shoulder seams definitely did not turn out as clean as I wanted them to be when he flipped it inside out, but it did help shorten the length of the sleeves. My process and final before + after photos are below!