Couture Close-Ups with Charles Kleibacker: Fitting the Anatomy, 1978

you saw Diane earlier in a superb piece of pure silk taffeta you now see Diane in very ordinary cotton muslin I'm showing Diane in this muslin for a number of reasons again it's that idea of how having worked with a piece of fabric placing it against the mannequin against the girls body I then developed my idea into muslin and do the fitting and take half of that muslin apart and then that muslin becomes by very permanent powder here on Diane the first thought is to talk to you about holding in deep v-neck lines that gap or from that circumstance any necklines that gap or how just generally speaking you should be holding in in certain areas in a beautiful careful Couture fit Diane may I ask you to sit I find and I'm gonna ask you to lean back and relax your shoulders I find these necklines are very very beautiful but when one is standing it's one story and when the person wearing them sits it's a completely another story that's when things fall apart I don't know whether the camera is showing you but certainly we are gapping all over the place with this neckline where I have not worked any ease what I do is to ask the person I'm fitting to sit and I take one pin and I put in that pin horizontally until the fabric stays right up against the body with that pin in I take a measurement from the shoulder seam to the center of the V and I mark that measurement on an ordinary piece of straight grain seam binding I repeat it is straight grain rayon seam binding a good quality not bias not cotton but rea unseen by me with the pin in remember I took the measurement and then I answer that measurement or rather I anchor I begin to anchor that seam binding say at the shoulder seam and at the center of the V and in this particular instance I was holding in 7/8 inch of 7/8 inch of fabric so having anchored my seam binding with that measurement at the shoulder seam and the center of the V and with the thought that I have 7/8 of an inch excess fabric now remember the seam binding goes inside here I'm anchoring on the wrong side of the shoulder seam in the center of the V then I go to the right side and I first distribute the ease with pins pinning through the seam binding now I repeat I'm distributing the ease but I'm distributing it completely evenly and after I have distributed that ease with pins I take a short needle because I'm going to ask you to do a tiny tiny little hand stitch and remember you cannot do a beautiful tiny little stitch with a long needle so with a number-10 crewel embroidery needle and a single strand of size a as in ABC size a silk thread I do the tiniest possible running stitch by hand just beyond the neckline mark and into the seam allowance and when I finish I have a real mess and that is when I'm asking you to think of the iron a sturdy ironing board a sleeve board that has a mitt on the end of it and we're going to be showing you what I mean by that sleeve board and the myth that's on the end the MIT I think of as having a pocket the ham is another story the met with the pockets you can easily slip on to the end of a sleep board and after I have done my tiny little running stitch I put that neckline over the round of the ham and first on the wrong side with a lot of steam I begin pressing out all of those bubbles because naturally holding in 7/8 of an inch you're going to have a great many bubbles after I've gotten as much as I can on the wrong side then I go to the right side and with a damp cotton press cloth I work with no steam on the right side that I feel is something that you must think about if we want beautiful beautiful clothes now in this instance I'm thinking of a self facing in other words all I'm going to do having done my stitch by hand having pressed it out so it's completely flat is to turn this fabric back on itself a self facing that is where I'm asking you if you're cutting from patterns to give inch and a half seam allowances if we're to do a beautiful fitting job rather than those five eighths of an inch that simply won't be enough if we want to do self facings and if we want to do Corrections which I want you to correct rather than two machine stitch everything at first I want you to hand based first you've got a friend or a neighbor to help you fit and then develop it into clothes die die and may I have you standing it's the same story in the back this dress has all had its back held in here on this side I've left the cell facing down but indeed that tape is in here on this side I turned it back to show you how if you will press even in something like this cheek muslin you wouldn't know it was held in here we are held in now on Diane I might hold in a little bit more because remember I fit this dress on one girl's body in New York and here we have beautiful Diane I might do a little bit but basically I feel it is very good another important thing here that I feel strongly about would you notice these pins whenever I have a curve like this whenever I'm setting in a set in sleeve I work from the right side of the garment not from the wrong side I don't feel we could ever achieve a beautiful curve here if we were working from the wrong side so what I do is to in the fashion fabric is to trace my markings by hand with a needle and thread onto the right side and then in this instance I pin the bodice over the skirt then we slip baste by hand and then I turn inside out to use that slip basting as a guide for my machine stitch this is an example of a long bias seam now when I talk bias seems I'm not thinking just of true bias this has is very definitely bias but it's following the anatomy where the anatomy curves in my bias has curved in if you would see my pattern on the flat where we begin to get into the stomach area I draw those biases way out so that if there is a bit of tummy that beautiful bias grain begins to camouflage it and then on someone like Diane we get all of these bias folds which I happen to think have a great look but remember please when you have curves to work from the outside when you have long bias seams from the bust line down preserve the grain until you're at the Machine once there stretch for all you're worth now of course what we have done here is first to have hand basted that by a seam in sections because then stretching at the machine as you're stitching I want all that to give with you so what we have done is to start with a knot at the very top baste a few seen a few stitches cut my thread go over a couple of those stitches stretch again not stretch excuse me I'm wrong don't stretch baste again six inches cut my thread another six inches so at the Machine all of those cut threads give with you and yet hold the seam together what I'd like to do is to bring on Nicky this phenomenally handsome fashion lady who wears clothes with such style and such elegance on Nikki is the dress as it developed into fabric from the muslin the dress in Jersey completely unlined the only thing I have in this garment is that seam binding in the neckline and here all the way around the back that fabric has very definitely been held in notice here how I try to work these skirts for the back area with a bit of ease for gracefulness so that the derriere can be taken care of but here again just as on Diane this fabric has all been held in as I showed you yes indeed that seam binding is in the dress as well as in the muslin what I do on the muslin I do exactly on the dress people are asking me all the time when I say I've held in why didn't I move that fabric up into the shoulder seam or why didn't I take my pattern and say do like a dart or some kind of an arrangement of course to adjust that pattern I don't believe in that there is that bust area where there is this well of the bust I need that fabric otherwise I'm making you uncomfortable and I'm flattening you where the body begins to where there is not that much flesh that's where I need to hold in that fabric and that is my reason now why I'm asking you to do this by hand remember as I said on the muslin I'm using a self facing this fabric has just been turned back on itself yes of course I might hold it in with a machine stitch but if Nicky gave an energetic movement she could really break my machine stitch she will never ever crack my hand work if I were doing a very high round neckline or say a you neckline where I have to notch into an eighth of an inch there I would stitch on a facing and in that instance I would do the same preliminary work of having you sit putting in one pin until that fabric stayed right up against the body now because I would be stitching on at a high round neckline I would put in two rows of long stitching or long machine Cherie pull those up to the bedroom until when the pin was in go to the board where I have my good steam iron my very very sturdy sleeve board with a mitt on it press all of that holdout in and then because I'm stitching on a self-facing now that's become stitching on a facing rather than employing a self facing I am reinforcing that machine stitch so there I can use the machine stitch what I ask you to do is not to hold in the facing cut it off at the shoulder seam or if there's a center front seam the amount that you have held in so that you equate so here again I'd like to remind you on the dress that you see we did all of this work from the right side pinning first then slip basting by hand and then turning inside to do the Machine work here as I mentioned to you on the muslin we preserve the grain until we were at the machine and of course we hand basted in sections this long by a seam but once at that machine we stretched for all we were worth and yes it did look a mess when we got finished mine always do I go to the ironing board where I employ three processes I always press all seams and darts flat first that takes away a great deal of the machine King then I begin to press them open with steam having first placed cut up strips of manila envelopes under those seams so as not to get impression on the right side in other words I take manila envelopes that have been sent to me through the mail cut them up so that cost you no money put them under the allowance and press first with steam in the opening of the seams then the third process I'm talking about the first process of being pressed together to get out the Machine kink then open with steam with the manila envelopes and then I go to a third one leaving the manila strips under there I take a well wrung cotton press cloth and I'm underscoring the word cotton a well room cotton press cloth and with no steam I give that seam on the wrong side another press and there you have then the kind of seam that you see here I'd like to bring in I'd like to excuse Diana Mickey and bring in another Diane with again this neckline thinking and here on Diane is a pattern a muslin of a pattern of oak pattern that perhaps some of you recognize it is the Diane Von Furstenburg pattern from vogue patterns I think it is a garment that many of you might have sewn my experience has been that once seated again that neckline too often falls away so I'm showing you here on Diane the same story of how you could hold in that neckline I asked her to sit we pinned in we put the measurement as I mentioned having taken it with that pin in on this ordinary piece of straight grain seam binding on the inside and began to ease with pins but what I feel is interesting here this pattern calls for a bus Dart and I don't know about you out there but I find those bus starts difficult to work with it seems to me that they're never ending in quite the right place and also I feel as you might agree I made some different arrangements over here with the scene notice the cleanliness here as against all of the Gopal here now what I did on that side was to put in what I call a design line so I simply took pins and from that Dart I pinned respecting the anatomy all the time and I pinned right straight across until I arrived at this neckline which helped me in the hold and of course and in that way I feel I do a great job of cleaning up on the anatomy even with those few pins you begin to see how much cleaner this looks I like design lines and if they help me get a good fit indeed I would leave that line in my fashion fabric here about the sleeve that and the neckline I feel are two of the crucial places for us to do a fit on this vogue pattern from the Diane von Furstenberg design I worked I left this side the way the pattern was and the minute I start raising Diane's arm I think you can see how she has problems and we start getting all of this bad pull when I raised this sleeve where I made adjustments I think you see how the sleeve stays the dress rather stays right there and I'm sure that you can see how much problem I have here again my point being that I think when not that I think only I know that when you're working with set in sleeves generally speaking you should think two ways can we get those sleeves higher under the armhole the jacket I have on is right under my arm I could play football in it and on this side I know that Diane is that much more comfortable what I do when I'm fitting a set in sleeve is to get down on my knee and I'm asking the person I'm fitting to put her hand on my head I feel she needs at least that much movement and here you can see we're not doing a thing to the dress what I have done here is to raise the side seam of the garment I'd say a good 5 eighths of an inch now that is not difficult to raise the side seam of the garment remember I'm saying garment not sleeve 5/8 of an inch now then I start pinning the sleeve underneath and in this instance I gave an inch and 1/8 more excuse me more than the pattern had allowed for that again is why I need my inch and 1/2 seam allowances in other words if I went to where the pattern was I would have this and I can't even force Diane's arm down I'd have that kind of an arrangement so you can see how much more comfort I'm giving her by allowing an inch and an eighth on the sleeve under the armpit now my general rule for setting sleeves is under the armpit where we have no flesh is to stretch the grain of the sleeve against the garment it's not easy to do but it is the way to arrive at a beautiful sleeve I stretched the sleeve of the garment the strata stretched the grain of the sleeve against the garment and once I begin to arrive at that armpit which we all have men and women that's where I start packing in the ease and I work that ease say from the armpit in the front over the shoulder to the armpit in the back and that is when we start getting a set in sleeve now it is very important that from that armpit front and back you give me a cross mark on the sleeve on the garment in the front the same story in the back at that armpit a cross mark on the sleeve on the garment because what I must ask you to do is to pull up the sleeve to the measurement on the garment I have all of this ease in here I must put ensuring threads get go to my ironing board get all of that pressed out before I set the sleeve into the garment that is when then you have a beautifully set sleeve I'm doing seminars around the country and it is always a great source of amusement to me when women come to me with a garment and say look at it I don't like the way that sleeve looks I've got all kinds of pickles and gathers what do I do so I say well take the sleeve out take the sleeve out they get very excited having set the sleeve in but what they did not do was to press out all the ease before they put the sleeve into the garment press it out then we get there with comfort and beauty you