They tell the pattern grader they are making clothing for women after children, age 35-50. They have not conducted a measurement survey either because it’s out of their budget/resources or because they are unaware it is something they should do.

The information needed depends on the customer; much of which is demography and the market (in my book, there’s a full page form on page 40 that helps determine this). If somebody says they’re hoping to hit X brand’s customer, that says a lot. Disposable income matters too.

Essentially they would be coming to Stuart without enough information but according to Kathleen in that article a newbie can say just a one or two inch grade and from Stuart’s post it also sounds like he would prefer much more.

The difference btwn Stuart’s advice and mine is context. Every customer is different. Some need a lot of hand holding, some don’t. If the customer is experienced, a grader needs a lot less information (in other entries I go into a great deal of detail as Stuart has). Personally? If the customer is new and not proven, I want a lot more information, not less. This is better described as butt covering. If the designer doesn’t know that much and a grader does the work properly, the customer may not know enough to know the work was done well. So, if you get more info, a grader always has that to fall back on so they are not blamed for the client’s possibly questionable decisions.

As far as grading itself, grade rules don’t vary that much between market segments, grading is not morphing! The fit characteristics are built into the stock size pattern. Grading only makes that fitting profile larger or smaller. This difference in these concepts is often misunderstood. Sizing characteristics, iow, the measures that constitute a given fitting profile are not the same thing as grade rules.

I’m wondering what would be ideal (given the new designer’s limited experience / abilities).

Again, there is no easy answer to this (and why I’ve written over 30 different articles about sizing and grading). It’s a difficult dance. Some designers don’t know much and they know it; some don’t know but think they do and others think they don’t but do. The situation is as variable as clothing itself. It’s all the not-knowing where ever it lay, that causes high costs.

I had one customer who thought he was an expert. Oh my, what an expert he led everyone to believe he was (a former forum member) -to the extent that he sent me detailed sizing specs of which the grade rules broke down into 39/64ths or 63/64ths and even, 67/128ths. Did I mention these specs were for karate uniforms? Seriously. Three piece patterns of wrap over tops and two piece elastic waist pull on pants. Because I’m stupid, I spent a week going back and forth with him, that it was not workable and that matters such as 63/64th amounted to calculation errors but he insisted. So in the end, I just sent it back. I wasn’t going to be responsible for this mess. All the time I spent was a waste of my time and money.

What I wonder is if brand new designer comes to the pattern grader and thinks they have everything… They’ve got their finalized pattern in their size 8 and want it graded up and down. They tell the pattern grader they are making clothing for women after children, age 35-50. They have not conducted a measurement survey either because it’s out of their budget/resources or because they are unaware it is something they should do (they are a new grad for instance and were always under the impression they just give the pattern to someone and get new sizes). Essentially they would be coming to Stuart without enough information but according to Kathleen in that article a newbie can say just a one or two inch grade and from Stuart’s post it also sounds like he would prefer much more. I’m wondering what would be ideal (given the new designer’s limited experience / abilities).

I’m gonna go ask a question on that article…thanks for the link, I don’t know how I missed that one.

What could that new company do to help the grader produce a better result?

It’s funny that you say grading is a lower skill…in schools it is not usually taught until the end of a program.

In my experience, as an evening student at a large fashion design school, most of the students (evening and day) are far more interested in using their time to learn to design and sew for Size 6 and Size 8 mannequins. There are two basic pattern making courses and four sequential draping courses. Grading is offered as an elective, but I don’t know many people who take it; I imagine they regard it as something they can learn in the workplace (assuming they can find a job). They want to be “creative” now and have fun.

Of course my background is nothing to yours, but I’d always read that grading was in fact a fairly subtle process, especially once one grades up more than a couple of sizes. Now if one has two to four years of training at rigorous design school, it may not be that hard. But I can’t imagine doing any serious grading without a serious pattern making background.

Anyway, I just wanted to add a couple of things on grading and patternmaking. As a subcontract pattern maker of 20 years I’m yet to find a company who, when specifying a grading rule set, does so in any systematic method. Most smaller companies expect me to tell them what standard sizing is and just grade accordingly … all they want is a set of patterns from one size to another. These type of people don’t last long in business.

Those who’ve been doing it a while and are really only subcontracting my services for interum reasons (their patternmaker is on maternity leave etc), not only provide me with a fixed (often outdated) set of measurements, but somewhat perculiar grading rules for the sizes not in the original set. And here’s the issue. Fit is an almost impossible task when the companies either provide only one size and an outdated set of grading rules, or a full set of sizes that don’t refect their target demographic (ie; a size 8 teenager is significantly different in shape to a size 8 senior citizen).

Companies just don’t seem to look at the implications of demographics. For example I’ve been told by one particular production team that they have strong sales in their size 6-10 group and weak sales in their size 12 group. To them that means their demographic is the 6-10 group. They criticised me for suggesting they’d failed to grade their size 12 correctly for the wider demographic. Their evidence was that the various franchises had returned stock with the “unsold/excess” box checked. As they obviously did not include a “poor fit for size” box on the returns docket I suggested they call a few of the franchises and ask what happened when ladies tried the size 12 and 14 … after much deliberation they immediately sent a work experience student (you call them interns over there) off to make the calls. A hour later I was contracted to redraft their grading rules (including a few fit tweaks on the larger sizes that can’t be built into the grading rules … another problem too difficult for students straight out of school).

I guess what I’m trying to say is that while the actual task of grading is extremely simple when working only to a fixed set of numbers … it’s getting that set of numbers and knowing how to manipulate it in an often non-linear manner that takes an enormous amount of wisdom and data collection. All my grading is a simple button click that takes just a nano second (literally) so is done well pre-production. Whether or not it’s accurate depends not on my skills or anything learned from a book, but on the information supplied to me by the client.

Pattern making may well be a taught skill in the early days of ones career, but to succeed at it requires an artists understanding of body shape and the amount of shape variation ateach size rather than an understanding of a table of sizes contributing to a fixed shape across the board.

I’ve always believed that a comprehensive understanding of demographics is required before any patternmaking or grading course can be taught … it’s absence from most courses is probably the reason grading is taught last … just way too many considerations for the average student without experience! This is why I bore people to death with demographics and market assesment information on my site before the pattern making section!!!

Again my compliments on everything you’re doing for the students!

I like patternmaking and am glad I know what I know. I get a lot of comments on stuff I’ve made for myself, even if I did use a commercial pattern that happened to fit or require only something like shortening the sleeve. I’d like to know more, though. And have enough money to keep myself supplied with lots of oak tag.