Size Chart Woes, Part II

(Check out Part I– in which I am cruelly mocked by a dress– here.)

In my efforts to enlighten the general public (and myself, why not) about the Sorry State of Size Charts, I met a recent graduate from a prominent fashion design school– we’ll call her “Deep Seam”– in a dimly-lit parking garage. Deftly and journalistically and with a Dustin Hoffman ’70’s-era shag, I coaxed from her the truth about the fashion industrial complex. The transcript of our meeting begins as follows:

Deep Seam: Have I explained the evil magic of grade rules to you yet? They are the reason that A) no two brands (or even items in the same line) have consistent sizing, and B) nothing nothing nothing fits bodies like ours*.

As much as I detest math, if I ever do a line of clothes for curvy ladies, as I would luh-huh-huve to do someday, I will spend months perfecting my custom grade rules, so that the sizes in my line scale the same way real bodies do, and not according to some arbitrary fantasy fractional gradation.

Michelle: Tell me more about grade rules. I was under the impression that most clothing lines hire a Size 6 or 8 “fit model” with the shape that they are looking for, and then size up and down from her measurements. Do grade rules have something to do with that?

Deep Seam: Well, fit models don’t usually come in until much later in the process.

The first step in producing a tailored line is to make a sloper by draping over a dress form**. A sloper is a master pattern, super basic, that is then used to draft the various designs in the collection. It’s sensible to make your sloper whatever size is in the middle of your size range, so yes, most slopers and basic designs are a size 6 or 8 and then graded up and down to fill out the range. If the designs are draped (as many are these days), the process is much the same – the garment is draped over the dress form, then transferred to a paper pattern and graded just as with a tailored garment.

From what I hear, in a medium to large company, designers are all competing vigorously for the chance to get their designs produced. There’s a lengthy process from concept sketches to flats to illustrations to muslins to samples. Many of my teachers told of bringing flats, illustrations, and/or samples to dozens of design meetings before even a single garment of theirs was approved. Only after a design is approved will it be tested on the fit model*** and adjusted according to need, before being graded and specc’ed.

Grading used to be done by hand, but now it’s mostly done using the Gerber pattern software and plotters. The grade rules, however, are still determined and entered manually for each garment.

Grade rules basically allow the garment to scale proportionally – you don’t make a shirt 1 size larger by just letting out one side seam, you have to let out both side seams, and also lengthen the hem, and broaden the shoulder, and widen the armhole, and…you get the idea, I hope. However, the increments by which grade rules grow or shrink doesn’t usually map up to how real people grow and shrink. A size 10 top grows mostly the same everywhere from a size 8, rather than growing a little more in the bust and a little less in the hem.

A grading point is assigned to every corner, seam, dart, pleat, collar tip, hem, and other relevant piece of the garment. The grader can use the same grade rules over and over for, say, the center front waist of a dozen different garments. But s/he will have to make judgment calls when grading a unique piece, and will often have to produce new grade rules on the fly (using industry standard breakdowns). In most cases, the difference between one size and the next on any given grade point is about 3/16″ – 1/4″. ****

In determining grade rules, the designer can and often should use industry standards, even if those standards don’t fit every person’s body – remember that most labels ship their designs and spec sheets overseas, usually through an agent, and usually to a factory where no one speaks or reads English – the manager and sewers of that factory will use industry standards to sew the garment even if you didn’t use them to design it, so it behooves everyone to use the standards.

To further complicate this process, all but the largest and smallest labels send their home-finished size 6 or 8 pattern out to be graded by professional graders, who will use their own grade rules if you don’t provide other instructions.

So if someone wanted to design a line of clothing specifically for curvy women, or very slim women, or busty women, or pregnant women, or any women who aren’t a Wolf size 8 (i.e. a very slim size 4)….they would have to start from scratch and really toil over building an effective set of grade rules that served their client’s actual needs. Most designers opt for the same set of grade rules they learned in school (or a former employer) because building a grade rule library is TEDIOUS AS HELL and involves a lot of math. And those standardized grade rules we’re all supposed to use are about as realistic as a size 8 Wolf dress form.

Michelle: I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Let’s continue this conversation tomorrow over coffee and face-obscuring cigarette smoke, shall we?

To be (dun dun dun!) continued…

Update!  Check out Part III for our conclusion…  or is it?

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*Michelle’s Note: Deep Seam and I have eerily similar proportions.

**Wolf is the worldwide industry standard, and this is problematic in and of itself, because a Wolf size 8 is closer in size to an actual size 4. The thighs on a Wolf size 8 form are about as big as my upper arms, and that’s not an exaggeration. People at my design school used to complain long and loud about how “fat” our dress forms were – the Alva forms are in fact mathematically designed to be a perfect “average” of US women’s bodies, so the size 8 alllllmost fit me, though as usual it was still too small at the bust and too big at the waist.

*** And incidentally, while we’re on the subject of fit models:

• A former friend was once selected to be a size 8 fit model for the Gap based on her measurements, which she found hilarious because none of the Gap’s clothes fit her at all.
• I heard many years ago that the top French couture houses preferred to use Brazilian MtFs as their fit models, because the clothes hung much more beautifully without all those pesky hips. This may or may not be true, but I think it worth mentioning in a discussion about why clothes dont fit curvy women.

**** This is another chance for sizing errors – if the grading is perfect, but the cutters or the sewers mess up…you get a crappy fit. those fractions of an inch add up real fast.