So I’ve been avoiding blogging, despite having interested friends, because… reasons. However! Solution? Entirely new topic!
[content: some discussing fatness, some Ahaha gender and bodies]
I’ve been slow-burn working on fat acceptance/celebration, body neutrality, and generally getting to know my body shape. This has been slightly ramped up in speed by:
1) starting tiny-dose T meaning some weight redistribution and changes in how clothes fit (ARMS, WHAT), and
2) realizing that, yes, I can use the word “fat” for myself without Appropriating or Betraying my friends who use it and are bigger than me, especially since yes I face similar issues (such as finding clothes that fit) even if perhaps Less So.
This also coincided with me having a little more time off work (summer season is slow) and finally organizing my living space well enough to have… a sewing corner! How better to deal with a lack of short, wide, bright pants and flat-chest-accentuating big-belly-having shirts than to pick up sewing again?
But ah, in the sewing world everything is cis woman default and full of chest-centered darts, even before you account for the unstandardized “plus size”/“full tummy”/“protruding abdomen”/“large belly”/“prosperous girth” terms and adjustments and plotting for. Groups like the Curvy Sewing Collective mostly focus on full bust adjustments, with a little on swayback (hollow small of back over protruding butt). And most advice also largely focuses on grading up pre-made commercial patterns and tailoring them to fit.
So I special-interest dove into pattern drafting from your own measurements, and how to make a sloper/block to start with that fit snug and could then be adjusted for ease/comfort and style. Especially: what are these assumed & unspoken differences between “women’s” and “men’s” sloper drafting?
…pretty much the chest-centered darts, it turns out so far.
BUT, I was slowly persuaded that just because “darts” are used synonymously with “chest-centered darts” doesn’t mean I have to hate them entirely. They could be of use, once wrested from the grip of cisnormative (and fatphobic) fashion guidance.
It was an absolute nightmare combing through “curvy” (cis women’s) advice, maternity advice, the scant few bits about 1500s European “peascod belly” style shirt lengthening, every goddamn thing about masking the problem stomach and emphasizing the small chest, patternmaking books about dart principles and almost nothing about flare, men’s patternmaking books that mention stomachs but give zero advice, and sewing for prepubescent children – BUT!
It seems like the base elements are:
1) measuring not full circumference around the body, but front half and back half from side seam marks, to properly place depth for belly and butt;
2) “adding fullness” by lengthening front hems (optionally side seams entirely, depending if you want to avoid a front curve tucking up on the sides); and
3) darts look like a < symbol, and the point should be aimed at and ending a little before the biggest curve apex (eg belly apex); it will have a sort of inverse effect of how it looks, blooming wider out at that point and pinching narrower as it gets further away to where its legs start.
Men’s torso slopers don’t usually have darts, except sometimes two back darts. Same for kids’. Pants slopers do all seem to use waist darts – not just women’s!
(There are some geometrical formulae to do with how plotting that apex point versus the dart point, which I may go back to when ready to brave the Bust Bodice Breast-ness of it all. Not now. Similarly I have to comb back for the advice about how much to lengthen for fullness.)
The center neck and center waist darts will be impractical for button-up shirts, which are ultimately what I want to be able to make for work, with a tight flat fit to emphasize a flat chest, and a flare looser over belly. I’m not worried about de-emphasizing belly; I much more want to feel comfortable, unworried about shirt untucking or riding up or buttons popping undone, and like my chest is tailored and obvious.
I haven’t made a muslin/toile/mock-up yet, but I’m drawn to the straight side seam option the most, purely because I’ve seen a lot of mid-armhole to bust. I did find a couple men’s jackets using mid-armhole darts down the front into pockets, though, so I’ll probably try them too.
Another technique I kept seeing and may try is the empire waist (sometimes combined with a “babydoll dress” style), where there’s a cinch seam at the natural waist (high up! not far below the armpits; this is where you naturally bend) and then the lower half flares out to drape more. Often done with gathers at the waistline, but I dislike that look and am going to try more flare; just have to figure out aligning the seam lengths without gathering.
I’ve also never worn high-waisted pants (not since homeschooled in the 90s anyway, pre any kind of self-consciousness) and I want to try that out. Learning to sew zippers is a ways down my priority list, but wrap pants and elastic waistbands are up there.
And! I’ve always liked the thick-belted waist look. While I know obi are gendered in Japan such that men’s are usually thin and tied below-belly, with women’s being thick and worn with obijime and tied across waist/chest (and haori/etc needing detached sleeves for that reason), it also seems like X-gender folks are doing whatever they damn well please, and so shall I. I got a really nice formal obi and some obijime, and some vintage haori that I’m loving the length and feel of. I’m considering something like haramaki, as I’m also interested in going out bare-chested with a jacket/haori. And I’m looking at tsukuri/tsuke obi on Shinei.
I’ve plotted out a sort of ramp-up course of mending, from easy seam fixes to darning with my machine (WHOA) to adding in godets (triangles) to too-tight sleeves, to trying the “cloning” of favorite fit clothes and making the slopers I’ve been playing with drafting, to making stuff with fusible iron-on interfacing (like a colorful bucket hat! low stakes), to eventually hopefully facings and sleeves and buttons and zippers. One dream is making disembodied sleeves that fasten at the collar, for that real MY CHEST IS BARE highlight.
Though I haven’t sewn in ages beyond plushies and pillows, I feel really solid on the basics thanks to years of lessons in my youth that left me with the somatic feel of it. Thread tension and stitch length suck, sure, but threading the machine, sewing round, pivoting corners, backstitching, even pressing, no problem. I think I only made three or so garments, but a lot of that was gender and measuring – and I’ve been doing a lot of self-measuring, having-a-friend measuring, and planning the mock-up stage.
It is really nice having international friends, and doing international measurement conversions, to really emphasize just how made up all our systems and scales are. The stone system of human weight measurement makes way more sense than pounds or even kilos.
(Also, why are shoe size numbers different by gender? And the numbers are sorta kinda not really inches for US sizing? SHOES. I CAN’T SEW YOU.)
Something about browsing Etsy clothing listings, the dimensions ready-to-wear or even handmade goes up to and their size charts, versus the “custom sizing, send me your measurements, no extra charge for larger sizes”… coupled with repeatedly taking my measurements at different times of day, after eating, moving furniture, resting… has been very peace-finding for me. In the, oh, it really is about cultural imaging.
Plug for FatSewing.club, especially the latest post about adaptive clothing and high-rise backs designed for constant sitting! And to LiEr for a measure-your-front-radius torso sloper tutorial (meant for kids, and definitely cis-oriented, but pleasantly gender-friendly). Also I find it hilarious that on FreeSewing, pants blocks will say “(without breasts)” or “(with breasts)” – okay???
epochryphal 