Dress form
A tailor's dummy or dress form is a life-size model of the human upper body, including the trunk, the tailors and fashion designers allows the seat and the case of clothing to check and to drape clothing designs and model.
Traditionally, tailors' mannequins are made of cardboard and fabric, and in the past also occasionally from a cane. Tailors' mannequins can be adjusted in height, formerly on a wooden axis with a wooden base, today mostly made of metal tubing. They are offered in different sizes. The fabric cover is underlaid with a layer of foam or wadding, which enables the tailor to pin individual parts in place with needles.
Rigid tailor's mannequins should be made to the standard clothing industry's standard sizes. Adjustable dressmakers' dummies have an interior made of plastic. They are adapted by the tailor to the respective customer by transferring the measurements taken to the tailor's dummy. This is done either mechanically, in that the components of the doll are spread or moved apart using a threaded rod, or through foam parts that are attached to the doll.
Tailors' mannequins can also be molded individually by a specific person, which is traditionally done with adhesive tape. Such a tailor's dummy then precisely reproduces the person's body. This is particularly recommended for self-tailoring, but is also used by high fashion houses such as Chanel to bother customers with as few fitting appointments as possible, but still guarantee a perfect fit. Around the 1950s, braids made of wire coated with plastic were also offered with which a figure can be molded.
Depending on the item of clothing that is to be made, there are also tailor's dummies with limbs. Tailors' mannequins are available for women, men and children in different sizes and with different adjustment options. The tailor's mannequins available in specialist shops today are unsuitable for historical costumes, as the proportions of the female body in particular differed greatly from today's ones due to the constriction in earlier times . Even adjustable dolls are usually not suitable for depicting these proportions.
See also
Web links
- Page in English with descriptions and illustrations of dressmakers' mannequins
- Instructions for making your own tailor's mannequins
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alexander Tuma: Pelz-Lexikon. Fur and Rough Goods, Volume XVII . Alexander Tuma, Vienna 1949, p. 107, keyword “bust” .