May 25, 2019

Oops!  Me bad.  Swamped with June 1st weddings and can't wait to show you but don't want to show them before the weddings, and yada, yada, yada...report next week, but pictures following that. 

A real quickie today to make up for not getting it done before yesterday.

One of the reasons I sew, and now teach is because there are some basic alterations that you can not make to RTW - one of them is that shoulder.  And the problem is, which if you have a shoulder that's out of proportion to the rest of the body, (and who doesn't - no one has correct proportions - evah!)  That shoulder is really hard. 

The reason is that you are dealing with 2 different axes when you're altering this piece and as a result if you mess up one axis, then the whole thing's messed up and that's easy to do, because one axis needs to remain the same while the other axis needs to be changed. 

Additionally you're dealing with the sleeve armscye and if that gets messed up then either you have too much or too little fabric to ease into the bodice armscye and well, cats and dogs start sleeping together and it's the end of the world as we know it!!!  Let me put it this way;  it took me almost 20 years of sewing before I would tackle this alteration and I pretty much told the client that if it messed up, then we would have to trash the garment.  At that point, the client was out of options so she said go for it.  It worked, but there were a lot of prayers and skeery moments for me.  After that, I've done it many times, and it doesn't really get that much easier every time. 

Now as if that weren't enough, the shoulder is an incredibly important part of the fit, even though RTW doesn't think so and doesn't care.  The shoulder is close to the face, which is where we want all the attention - to your cheery, smiling (because you're so comfy and wearing something flattering)!  But the shoulder is also the place everything hangs from (except the skirt and pants).  Your coat, jacket, blouse, top, shirt, blouse, shell, t-shirt, dress, tunic and anything else, hangs from your shoulders.  If the fit on your shoulders is wrong, bad, or otherwise faulty, then below that can't make up for it.  That means everything below that either stays as bad as the shoulders or gets worse, most often gets worse.

Here's a few examples of this.

Here's a case where the shoulder is completely off the shoulder, theoretically so that she can close this, but look at all the fabric around the underarm on the sleeve and the jacket.  This is so easily solveable with an FBA.  When the shoulder is not even placed correctly there's no hope for anything else to be right.  Actually if the shoulder had been in the right place (the blue line) then one or two FBA couldn't have been added, and that takes away all the wrinkles in the bodice.  So then how do you solve the wrinkles in the sleeve.  Well, the sleeve is set in at an incorrect angle, because the shoulder is clear out to the left so much.  Once the sleeve hangs at the blue line, those wrinkles mostly disappear.
THAT'S how important the shoulder placement and shoulder line is.



BUT......
What you get when you sew is you get to set up the pattern from the start, and add a couple or more FBAs, then you end up with a smashing look. 

Here's Octavia Spencer in "The Help"

 








The costumer purposely dressed her with her sleeve waaaaay off the shoulder and completely wrinkles and purposely makes her shoulders look slopey and all that fabric under her arm, to purposely make her look unfitted.

But what happens at the Golden Globes when Octavia wants to look nice:


Wow - what a difference - and not only does she look stunning, it's because she is fit so well, in a jacket no less.  Let's take this apart:
 

• Shoulders are right on point - right where they should be.
• Shoulders have a crisp cut and shape to them to make her look like she has shoulders - who cares if she does or doesn't - a crisp shoulder always improves your posture and makes you look stunning.
• The line from her shoulder line down her silhouette is dreamy - it has
  • proper placement at top,
  • a bit of a curve under her bust which is perfect for those of us with no waist, and it gives the illusion of a waist without being uncomfy, and
  • smooth bodice in front.
• There is one problem - she still has some wrinkles under her arm, but because so much is right, we hardly see that - BECAUSE THE SHOULDER IS CORRECTLY PLACE, AND THINGS HANG WELL FROM THE SHOULDER  - it's that important. 

So the upshot here in spades is that placing your shoulder in the right place is paramount to a great fit.  Even if things go awry below that, it's not nearly as bad as having the shoulders in the wrong place.  And truly, the only way you can do this, is if the garment is custom made for you.  Men have a better chance of this than women.  Women purchasing clothes have almost nil chance of getting this right, but men have a better chance. 

OK - hope you all have a very safe and fun Memorial Day and see you on FRIDAY with more stuff next week, and then great reveals on the week following!!!

 

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