Integrating Draping, Drafting, & Drawing - Fairchild Books

Integrating Draping, Drafting, and Drawing
Preface
This book is about a dialog between an artist
and a technician. It illustrates the design process,
encompassing sketch and garment pattern development.
It depicts the relationship among three
disciplines of fashion design: draping, drafting,
and drawing. The integration is presented in a
highly visual format.
These disciplines, particularly draping and
drafting, are often taught in separate classes.
Their relationship is integral to efficient and timesaving
methods of developing a design and its
pattern. Our aim is to create bridges between
studio methods and design illustration. Each
chapter renders a combination of skills and the
natural flow among them. Two-dimensional
design informs the three-dimensional and vice
versa.
Chapters are presented as hands-on learning
experiences with lessons that mimic classroom
demonstrations. Step-by-step photography portrays
the draping process in a sculptural way
rather than using illustrations, which cannot truly
depict the response of fabric draped on a dress
form. The images of muslin “sculpture” combined
with digital drafts offer interchangeable
solutions for pattern development.
Throughout the book, there are alternative
methods used by practicing designers for developing
slopers. These are master patterns, created
by draping or drafting and used to generate style
variations. We chose the basic components of the
dress as the model used throughout the text to
demonstrate how draping, drafting, and drawing
are integrated in design development. The components
are the skirt, bodice, neckline, collar,
sleeve, and dress foundation. These disciplines
are similarly integrated in the design of men’s and
children’s wear.
Each chapter builds on the last. After an
introduction to tools and preparation techniques
in Chapter 1, Chapters 2, 3, and 6 begin with
draping as the first step in producing a sloper.
Drafting the sloper is then offered as an alternative
method. Chapters 4, 5, and 7, focusing
respectively on bodice variations, necklines and
collars, and dresses, begin with drafting because,
for many of the design variations, these chapters
utilize slopers developed in the previous chapters.
In the case of a design variation such as the leg-omutton
sleeve, for example, drafting the pattern
is more efficient than draping it.
All design starts with an idea, which needs to
be translated into a sketch. Drawing basics are
interwoven throughout the book, with an emphasis
on understanding body lines in relation to the
dress form and proportion. It is directed toward
communicating specific garment detail in the context
of related projects. Lessons ground the creative
process and strike a balance between the
technical and visual elements. Drawing informs
draping and drafting, just as these disciplines
inform drawing. Step-by-step instructions on
PREFACE
|xi