Hi,
first of all, let me start with some sort of disclaimer: for those that dislike people "copying" designers work: Sorry.
I am not doing mass production, nor am I working in clothing design professionally (in fact, I am working in marketing). This is a single item, where I wanted to see whether I am capable of putting together the "flowing" type of chiffon pants that you could see a lot in Gareth Pugh's fall/winter 2011 runway shows.
Type of pants and movement
First of all, let's take a look at the pants that I had in mind:
As you can see, the pants are kinda "flowing" while the model walks. There were different models for men and women, the major difference being that the women's pants were flowing more, whereas the men's didn't use as much fabric. As one will be noticed with those pants anyway, I thought that I can go all the way and make the wide-flowing type of pants.
There are also pockets in the men's version, which I found to be too difficult to make. Pockets as such aren't very difficult, but it was the first time I worked with chiffon, and it turned out to be one of the more difficult things to work with, as it will constantly "flow", even while drawing the pattern onto it - so I am quite glad that I didn't bother about the pockets.
Taking a closer look:
^
First thing that we notice: There are multiple layers of chiffon. At least there are two layers, one inner layer, and one outer layer.
^
Second, the pant almost looks like a skirt when walking, so there is much fabric. It's not just a boot-cut or flare-type of pant, it's even wider.
^
Looking at the back, we notice that the outer chiffon-layer doesn't go all the way around and does not meet the front part in the inner seam of the pant, but it stops in the mid-section of each leg. This allows the fabric to move more freely when walking. In addition, we don't see a rolling seam or any seams at all for the part that moves freely. If a silk-chiffon was used, the edge finishing must be superb.
Pattern construction
The pants consist of three layers (at least the one I constructed):
- an inner lining
- the first chiffon layer
- the second chiffon layer, which doesn't go all the way around
As we saw from the pictures, the pants look similar to a skirt. This is no coincidence: From a historic perspective, women always wore skirts, up to the point where bikes came up. Skirts were impractical to ride the bikes, so a "divided" skirt, the "culotte" was developed. You could say that the culotte was the first type of pants for women, and looking at the chiffon pants above, there are some similarities.
For those of you that have worked with patterns, you will see the skirt-like pattern of the culotte, but also the pant-like finishing on the right-hand side that comes close to pants:
Source: Helen-Joseph-Armstrong: Patternmaking for fashion design, 5th edition, page 572, image slightly edited.
But of course - these pants are not a skirt, and they also aren't a culotte. So how could I get the pattern?
I started off with some pants that fit me. Modifying a pants pattern is a lot of work (till they fit perfectly), so it makes more sense to take some pants that already fit and reverse-engineer their pattern.
That's why I took my bootcut Lee jeans as a basis.
Here is a picture of the jeans:
... and here's a picture of the pattern derived from these jeans:
This is also the pattern that I used to create the inner lining of the pants, which is made from a satin-like (Royal Duchesse type) fabric.
Note that these are boot-cut, which means that they flare out a little wider at the leg. When I first started sewing this project, I did a sample of the pants, and found that if you keep the flare for the chiffon, the chiffon pants start looking like 70's disco pants. That's why I removed the flare for the chiffon pattern and used a straight line.
Starting with this pattern, I needed to add the fullness of the chiffon, so it could move freely. I did that by adding more fabric to the pattern on the outer-side of the pants, which is visible in this revised pattern (still based on the Lee bootcut jeans, but taking into consideration the culotte pattern):
If you would cut the chiffon using this pattern, you would have a seam running down on the outer sides of the pants. I looked at the runway shows multiple times, but I couldn't see any seams there. So... Gareth must have used one single piece of fabric. That's what I did as well - I put together the two halves of my pattern:
The pattern above shows the inner chiffon layer. Now we still have a second chiffon-layer on top, which doesn't go all the way around, but ends in the mid-half of each leg at the back. That's why the chiffon doesn't go all the way around:
first of all, let me start with some sort of disclaimer: for those that dislike people "copying" designers work: Sorry.
I am not doing mass production, nor am I working in clothing design professionally (in fact, I am working in marketing). This is a single item, where I wanted to see whether I am capable of putting together the "flowing" type of chiffon pants that you could see a lot in Gareth Pugh's fall/winter 2011 runway shows.
Type of pants and movement
First of all, let's take a look at the pants that I had in mind:
As you can see, the pants are kinda "flowing" while the model walks. There were different models for men and women, the major difference being that the women's pants were flowing more, whereas the men's didn't use as much fabric. As one will be noticed with those pants anyway, I thought that I can go all the way and make the wide-flowing type of pants.
There are also pockets in the men's version, which I found to be too difficult to make. Pockets as such aren't very difficult, but it was the first time I worked with chiffon, and it turned out to be one of the more difficult things to work with, as it will constantly "flow", even while drawing the pattern onto it - so I am quite glad that I didn't bother about the pockets.
Taking a closer look:
First thing that we notice: There are multiple layers of chiffon. At least there are two layers, one inner layer, and one outer layer.
^
Second, the pant almost looks like a skirt when walking, so there is much fabric. It's not just a boot-cut or flare-type of pant, it's even wider.
^
Looking at the back, we notice that the outer chiffon-layer doesn't go all the way around and does not meet the front part in the inner seam of the pant, but it stops in the mid-section of each leg. This allows the fabric to move more freely when walking. In addition, we don't see a rolling seam or any seams at all for the part that moves freely. If a silk-chiffon was used, the edge finishing must be superb.
Pattern construction
The pants consist of three layers (at least the one I constructed):
- an inner lining
- the first chiffon layer
- the second chiffon layer, which doesn't go all the way around
As we saw from the pictures, the pants look similar to a skirt. This is no coincidence: From a historic perspective, women always wore skirts, up to the point where bikes came up. Skirts were impractical to ride the bikes, so a "divided" skirt, the "culotte" was developed. You could say that the culotte was the first type of pants for women, and looking at the chiffon pants above, there are some similarities.
For those of you that have worked with patterns, you will see the skirt-like pattern of the culotte, but also the pant-like finishing on the right-hand side that comes close to pants:
Source: Helen-Joseph-Armstrong: Patternmaking for fashion design, 5th edition, page 572, image slightly edited.
But of course - these pants are not a skirt, and they also aren't a culotte. So how could I get the pattern?
I started off with some pants that fit me. Modifying a pants pattern is a lot of work (till they fit perfectly), so it makes more sense to take some pants that already fit and reverse-engineer their pattern.
That's why I took my bootcut Lee jeans as a basis.
Here is a picture of the jeans:
... and here's a picture of the pattern derived from these jeans:
This is also the pattern that I used to create the inner lining of the pants, which is made from a satin-like (Royal Duchesse type) fabric.
Note that these are boot-cut, which means that they flare out a little wider at the leg. When I first started sewing this project, I did a sample of the pants, and found that if you keep the flare for the chiffon, the chiffon pants start looking like 70's disco pants. That's why I removed the flare for the chiffon pattern and used a straight line.
Starting with this pattern, I needed to add the fullness of the chiffon, so it could move freely. I did that by adding more fabric to the pattern on the outer-side of the pants, which is visible in this revised pattern (still based on the Lee bootcut jeans, but taking into consideration the culotte pattern):
If you would cut the chiffon using this pattern, you would have a seam running down on the outer sides of the pants. I looked at the runway shows multiple times, but I couldn't see any seams there. So... Gareth must have used one single piece of fabric. That's what I did as well - I put together the two halves of my pattern:
The pattern above shows the inner chiffon layer. Now we still have a second chiffon-layer on top, which doesn't go all the way around, but ends in the mid-half of each leg at the back. That's why the chiffon doesn't go all the way around:
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