J.K. Wilson on Drape

Carpu65 posted a page from an issue of the Tailor and Cutter magazine from 1954. It is an article by J. King Wilson on his recollection of the drafts of Frederick Scholte, the "inventor" of the Drape cut.



He admits that his memory may be a bit fuzzy, but this draft is interesting nonetheless, for several reasons. He gives the size as a 40" chest.

The half waist is approximately 21", one can't say for sure since the dart and overlap measures are missing; it's generous but still within the realm of an ample size 40. The neck point is located 4 1/2" from the scye, which is roughly an inch of drape by my calculations. No surprise there. The point-to-point is a whopping 20", which is not surprising given the purpose of the drape was to give the appearance of broad shoulders and full chest above a trim waist, and there is 3/4" fullness in the shoulder compared to the 3/8" that was commonly given in Wilson's but I'm curious that there appears to be little to no drape in the blade. I would have expected some here , given what other drafts and certainly what other tailors who make some version or other of the drape cut, but it is possible that Scholte, whose purpose in cutting was aesthetic and not functional, may not have given much drape to the blade. I don't remember having seen a decent back view of any of his coats. The drape in the blade may have been a later addition, or else it is a mistake on the part of Mr. Wilson as the article was written about seven years after Scholte's death, and perhaps 20 years after the height of the drape cut's popularity.

Slim Suits Loosen Up- news from the Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal posted an article this week on the loosening up of the slim suit.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/slim-suits-loosen-up-1416438021

One of the suit lines they mention is Todd Snyder White Label, something new to Nordstrom. I developed that fit for Todd (it's being made in Chicago by Hart Schaffner Marx, the company of which I was VP Design until recently) and long-time readers of this blog (and StyleForum) may find this interesting since it involves a personal journey that started online several years ago. (Hint- it involves DRAPE!)

Like many of my colleagues, I had been trained in the clean-lines school of tailoring, that a well-cut suit should look like polished marble, without rumples or wrinkles or fullness of any sort. The coat should be cut close to the body and be reinforced by canvas and interlining to maintain that cleanliness. I encountered a group of people online who challenged that notion by their adherence to a diametrically-opposed school of tailoring, known by its early-twentieth-century moniker The Drape Cut. A lot of ink has been spilled on the subject, but the reader's digest version of that story is that tailored clothing at the turn of the century was rather close-fitting and followed the natural contours of the male body, the downside to that being that the less ideally-proportioned among us would have those proportions revealed by their clothing. A dutchman named Frederick Scholte who was working on Savile Row at the time was inspired by military greatcoats whose broad shoulders and cinched, belted waists gave the illusion of a more athletic body so he gently extended the shoulder of the suits he cut, increased the fullness in the chest and the top of the sleeve and slimmed down the hip. The resulting sihouette became known os the Drape Cut, the London Drape, or the Blade Cut, and was widely copied around the world, perhaps most visibly by the tailors dressing 1930's Hollywood. Like any trend it became exaggerated to the ugly extremes of the zoot suit and fell out of fashion. Certain houses, such as Savile Row's Anderson and Sheppard, as well as a handful of other tailors like Rubinacci and Alan Flusser have kept the drape alive to a certain extent and we see influences in some of Ralph Lauren's clothing (certainly his own, broad-shouldered suits) and Tom Ford. Most of the examples of it that I had seen on people, however, just looked like sloppy, ill-fitting messes to me so I dismissed it.

Online discussions about the cut revealed a certain amount of passion on both side of the fence, and Nicholas Antongiavanni's riff on Machiavalli, a book titled simply "The Suit" but which extolled the superiority of the drape cut made me a little bit crazy.

Back then I was in the habit of tearing apart interesting clothing so see what I could learn about how they were cut and made (and which partially prompted this blog) and I came across a vintage drape-cut suit from Anderson and Sheppard. It was a pivotal moment for me because once I got past some of the glaring deficiencies in the sewing (a dark period in the history of clothing from which they seem to have recovered), I saw something interesting in the cut. From my post at the time-

"A&S has a possibly unwarranted reputation for cutting shapeless sacks. Certainly the ones I have seen were ugly things. But not this one; instead of wide, droopy shoulders, it has a moderately wide, softly padded shoulder which is in balance with the rest of the garment. And there is a shape. The most shapely garment I have ever examined. A huge drape allowance on the back, and bizarre sleeves. But shape- good shape. So, curious, I tried it on. It’s not my size, but I know about putting garments on my body which are not my size.

And then I paused again.

I think I stood looking in the mirror for a full fifteen minutes. Looking past the awful sewing, and some of the stylistic things that bug me, this silhouette did not look bad at all. I even caught myself thinking that if the cloth were not in such rough shape I could cut it down and wear it myself. Then I started moving around, and thought, damn, this thing IS comfortable. Then I had another look at the chest and the drape there. It was not the lumpy chest I was used to seeing, but a nicer fold, a real drape, not just bulk, and I can honestly say that at that moment I got it. I understood it."



I started rethinking my opposition to the principles behind the drape cut and started to do some more research.

Once I had located as much as had been written in tailoring journals dating to the period of the original Drape, I started to synthesize man of the ideas in my head and created an experiment. I would cut myself a draped coat using my own modern drafting style but the vintage pattern manipulations, and wrote about it. The result was far from perfect but I learned a lot if things in the process.





Shortly after that I took over at Hart Schaffner Marx, an old American clothing company, and got to work redoing all the silhouettes and patterns. The company had some boxy silhouettes and had attempted a slim-fit which was poorly received because people felt it was just too tight. I studied all the other garments on the market and found that the slim-cut clothing in general was tight all over. Fine for Hedi Slimane-esque skinny people, but certainly not fine for those with some extra meat on their bones. The other thing I found common in these suits was that the drop was wacky. The drop is the difference between chest size and pant size and the standard is about six inches. A seven inch drop is considered "athletic" so most slim suits carried a 7-inch drop. A size 40 suit would have a size 33 pant instead of a 34, assuming that these slim suit-wearing people had small waists. The thing is, though, that meant that the pant was smaller ALL OVER instead of just in the waist. I had other ideas about that, too.

Whereas slim coats would have a slim waist, but also a narrow shoulder, a small armhole, and a narrow sleeve, I created something with a slim waist, but a slightly extended shoulder, an armhole that was high but wide front to back to allow for a bigger bicep and added a little bit of the dreaded drape to the chest, both front and back. The sleeve was much fuller around the cap to allow for a fuller deltoid, but then slimmed it down at the wrist. In many respects, the description of those first drape models. My first iterations had a trim seat in the coat, but I realized that athletic figures generally had a more prominent seat and thighs, so I needed to give more room for that. And as for the trouser, instead of cutting the smaller size 33 instead of 34, I made a pant that had a smallish waist but had the room to allow for a full seat and thighs, inspired by alterations I was having to do to my jeans. The moderately slim cut we called the New York, and the slimmer, much shorter version we called the Los Angeles.

The Spring 2013 Los Angeles coat looked like this



compared to Dior's slim cut which was one of the biggest influences on slim tailoring-



So when Todd Snyder, who at J. Crew had created the Ludlow suit, came to us at HSM to create his White Label garments, I showed him what I had been doing with these silhouettes and he liked it. I softened up the shoulder of the LA model, he created a lapel shape for it and we developed a cool trim package for the line, and it's now in Norsdtrom stores. I'm now working on a new project and a few new lines of clothing that will appear in stores in Fall 2015 where I will continue to develop ideas about a modern drape cut. So I guess I have to thank Antongiavanni and the Drapists at StyleForum for pushing me in a direction I never would have taken without them. Somewhere, Réjinald Jérome deMans is yelling "I TOLD YOU SO!" at his computer screen.

More experimentation with drape...

Wow. It’s been a while. Let me start by wishing everyone a happy new year!
In the past six weeks I had been home all of five days, and non-consecutive ones at that so I’m way behind in all of my projects. The Ariston coat is long-finished but I need to photograph it and now I have a small pile of cloth to cut.


J&J Minnis was having a sale- the Crown Classics bunch was being offered at twenty pounds a meter plus VAT. So it’s time for another experiment.

Some time ago I experimented with drape, referencing a draft manipulation published by Whife in the Modern Tailor, Outfitter and Clothier. I had seen a number of published texts on the construction of a drape coat but had never handled the real thing so I kind of made things up as I went along, in terms of construction. The finished result was this.





Some of the details were goofy but the silhouette wasn’t bad.

Then I bought this vintage Anderson & Sheppard coat and learned a few things.



Most particularly, about how the drape in the chest is achieved by cutting the haircloth away from the armhole.



So this experiment is two-fold. First, the piece that I bought from Minnis is dark brown with a chalk stripe. I have never owned a brown suit and I’m not sure if I will like it or not. One way to find out, right?

Second, I will try this drape thing out again, but this time with an eye on the A&S coat. I like the shape and the flare to the skirt, though it’s perhaps verging on costume. The one thing I’m not really sure about is the chest. While I agree that the chest emphasis flatters me, as in the first attempt, I don’t think I can stomach a proper drape, with the haircloth cut away from the armhole, on a suit. I think I’m just too stuck in my ways for that. So I may keep the full haircloth in the chest. At which point it begins to resemble a Tom Ford cut.

Hmm.

We know that he was a customer of A&S before starting his own men’s line. So it’s very possible he went through the same thought process- extend the shoulder a bit and emphasize the chest to create the illusion of more waist suppression but build the chest up with a good amount of haircloth so that it’s clean and not sloppy. I’ve heard people moan about the fact that he was just copying this one or that one, but really, who isn’t inspired by somebody else? A&S was “inspired” by Scholte who was “inspired” by military uniforms…

One last question mark that remains in my head. Normally when underpressing the fronts, we keep the stripes closest to the armhole completely straight from the waist up to the top, working the chest forward toward center front. Since the objective of the traditional drape cut was to have a fold of cloth near the armscye, I figured that working the chest forward would negate that fullness near the scye and on the last coat I didn’t straighten them out. It seemed to work, but this time I think I’ll stick to the rules about stripes and see what happens.

So in all a lot of risks and a good chance I’ll end up not liking the suit. But at twenty pounds a meter at least it’s not an expensive risk, and worth the investment for whatever I might learn out of the process.

EDIT

My bad- I should have been more clear about what I mean by "drape". I'm not referring to the drape of the cloth or the patternmaking technique of draping, but to a style of coat that was created at the turn of the last century, was very popular in the thirties and virtually disappeared in the fifties. A primer, as well as the draft manipulation used for the last garment can be found here.

EDIT

In response to a question about underpressing the fronts, the stripes act as a guide for the correct pressing, and this is a critical step before basting the canvas. The stripes nearest the scye must run absolutely straight from the shoulder down to the waist line (this will cause a distortion in the stripes forward of the dart- this is normal). The stripes closest to center front must run straight from the waist down to the hem. This has the effect of crookening the shoulder point a tiny bit during pressing, but is separate from the issue of whether it is a straight-cut or crooked-cut coat. Hope this is a bit clearer now.

Vintage Anderson and Sheppard

Dropping the name Anderson and Sheppard into any serious sartorial conversation is like dropping a bomb; in the words of their former managing director, “You either swear by our coats or you swear at them”. For some reason, they inspire a lot of swearing.



Founded in 1906 by Frederick Scholte’s undercutter, Per Anderson, the house has been fairly faithful to their house cut of a soft, draped coat. Depending on which sources you consult, this can mean all sorts of things. I admit that I am not a fan of what I have seen from them, namely overly wide, droopy shoulders and lumpy, messy chests, not to mention the backs and the sleeves which I think could be improved a lot. I also admit that their managing director, while credited with having brought them back from the brink, will occasionally say the darndest things which make my head spin and I immediately shut off and dismiss him. I suppose that is human, but it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, perhaps. But there is so much mystique and lore surrounding them that I was, of course, insanely curious about their garment. So when a reader offered to donate a garment to science, I was thrilled.

Thank you, Simon.


They have a beautiful web page which is worth visiting, and an SF member blogs about the A&S's visit to New York here.

This coat was made in 1987 but the trouser in 1992- we can assume that the owner wore out the first pair and was fortunate enough that they had the cloth to make another pair five years later. The only information (other than the client name and date) on the label is an order number and the initial C. Often this represents the cutter’s name but we can’t assume anything yet (anyone know anything that they care to share?)

I have to say that this was a tough one. A very tough one. I try to be as objective as I can when examining a garment, especially one from which I can learn things. But his garment is a mess. Not just because of its age, which is showing. In fact, we can lay to rest another myth, namely that bespoke lasts a lifetime. It can, if well cared for. But it is not the rule; this garment has been repaired a number of times, and not well at all. It is also falling apart at the (hand-sewn) seams. Looking past the age and the repairs, the sewing is a mess. It is truly not worthy of any decent tailoring house, much less one that claims to be one of the best. I was having a very hard time preparing an objective, fair and balanced look when all I was tempted to do was tear it to shreds, literally and figuratively, and launch into a tirade, even though the garment is over 20 years and one can assume they have cleaned up their act since otherwise they would surely be out of business by now.

But then I put it on a dummy.

And paused.





A&S has a possibly unwarranted reputation for cutting shapeless sacks. Certainly the ones I have seen were ugly things. But not this one; instead of wide, droopy shoulders, it has a moderately wide, softly padded shoulder which is in balance with the rest of the garment. And there is a shape. The most shapely garment I have ever examined. A huge drape allowance on the back, and ugly, bizarre sleeves. But shape- good shape. So, curious, I tried it on. It’s not my size, but I know about putting garments on my body which are not my size.

And then I paused again.

I think I stood looking in the mirror for a full fifteen minutes. Looking past the awful sewing, and some of the stylistic things that bug me, this silhouette did not look bad at all. I even caught myself thinking that if the cloth were not in such rough shape I could cut it down and wear it myself. Then I started moving around, and thought, damn, this thing IS comfortable. Then I had another look at the chest and the drape there. It was not the lumpy chest I was used to seeing, but a nicer fold, a real drape, not just bulk, and I can honestly say that at that moment I got it. I understood it. I also understood the bias canvas business, I think, but we’ll get to that.

The thing is, though, I suspect this is the work of Colin Harvey. The skirt has a flare that reminds me of the Prince of Wales’ garments, which were cut by Mr. Harvey. The C on the label would bear it out. So either there was once a maverick cutter at A&S whose work I can appreciate, or there was once a house style infinitely more palatable than what is being done now, which is possibly lost in time. Whatever the case is, keep in mind that the following is, after all, a review of a 20-year old garment and can’t be taken for a reflection of the house today since there have been a number of changes of staff. We hope there were changes in the level of quality as well.

A DB three by two and a single forward pleated trouser with side tab closures; I understand that it is unusual that this coat had a front dart and a separate side body which helps to give it shape.

Here we see the massive back drape



And a sleeve which I find atrocious but which I have actually concluded will give you more movement than a cleaner one. More on that in another post.



I won’t bore you with all the gory details, just some of them. And you may think I’m being nitpicky about silly things like pattern matching. But pattern matching is a sort of signpost. There are so many details in a garment that you can’t see, that we pay special attention to certain details like pattern matching as a sign of the level of attention to detail. If the things you can see are not done well, you can assume that the things that you CAN’T see are also not done well. So while I can see the rest and judge it, you may not be able to. That’s why pattern matching and things like that are important.

A&S is one of the few that bother to match the pocket jets, as a sign of their attention to detail. It is sad, then to see one pocket so madly mismatched.



The other pocket is much better; maybe it was the tailor’s excitement in doing a much better job on this pocket that led him to forget to pick stitch it. I am joking in part, but not about the forgetting to finish it part.


The collar is another spot- the collar should match the back. Like the pockets, they got one side right, just not both.



Their much-vaunted hand-sewn armhole seam is coming apart



as is the gorge.



The tab closures are sloppy



And the breast welt has sagged so much that the facing seam shows.



In a previous post I remarked that, while scrounging on ebay I was surprised by the lining, thinking that they had taken the step of cutting the inside pockets directly onto the lining, which is not only weak, but makes lining changes difficult. When I put my hands on the Huntsman and Poole garments I found I was wrong and they had been carefully crafted by hand to resemble the cheaper way of doing it, but the pocket was actually mounted on concealed cloth and in a way which made changing the lining easy when it wore out.

Imagine my surprise to find that not only has the lining been inserted by machine, but the pockets are cut directly onto it, the way I initially feared they would be. And they are absolutely sloppy pockets.



And this is what happens over time when we make sloppy pockets, only now it is a big job to change the lining because of the way it was initially made.



The hem is sloppy



And the neck is worse



The trouser finishing is no better, and to add insult to injury, they have used black thread on red lining. In several spots of the trouser and the coat.



Then things get more interesting. The linen canvas, which was expected, is cut on the straight grain, which was not. They are known for cutting their canvas on the bias.



Their MD has explained that bias-cut canvas has the benefit of stretching in the length, to which I say “So what?” The coat does not stretch so why should the canvas stretch? There is no vertical tension on the coat, it does not button up under your crotch or get hooked onto your plus-fours, so why the need to stretch? It makes no sense at all.

BUT the merits of bias-cut cloth have long been known because of its unique ability drape. Ah. Vionnet was a genius with bias-cut cloth and was a huge influence on my dress-making days. Aside from stretching, the bias allows cloth to roll in a way that the straight grain does not. So if the drape in the chest were allowed to roll, a bias-cut canvas would help it. THIS would make total sense. So maybe old John is ad-libbing instead of sticking to the script. In any case, it will only roll if it is not impeded by the chest canvas which usually extends into the armhole.

We see here that the chest canvas is cut well clear of the armhole; this will allow the excess cloth cut for the drape style to fold near the scye instead of puffing out like a swelled chest would do. Taking off the domette we can see that there is haircloth underneath, just a smaller, carefully positioned piece.



Unfortunately, the haircloth is of a very bad quality and is migrating- you can see the hairs jutting into the armhole



And the fact that I can pull it out easily shows there is no crimp to the hair which would have prevent this migration. It would also have prevent the vee from coming apart at the shoulder as it did. When you feel prickly, plastic-like things poking your chest, it is probably bad haircloth that is migrating like this one.



The shoulder has one little piece of wadding supported by a piece of linen and covered by a layer of lining. Just a whisper, but it is enough since the shoulders are not exaggeratedly wide. The shoulders they cut today need much more support to keep them up, and yet they sag.


What do I conclude from this? Well, I know a few things about drape that I didn't before and see what I did wrong on my previous drape experiment. I also know that it's worth a second look. So stay tuned, as we will be making some more drape.

(I hear the sound of Sator weeping....)

UPADTE

Some comments from Mr. Seitelman which are valid and deserve a response (thank you, Mark)

Dissection is an interesting exercise, and I have followed your blog.

Indeed, Mike Cohen, former president of Oxxford, used to dissect competitors' suits. he knew how to do it so as to put the suit back together.
We follow in Domenico Caraceni's great tradition of examining other people's clothes.

the examination of the this suit is not necessarily a fair example of A & S workmanship either back in 1987 or today.
I was quite clear that it is not a reflection of their work today.

For example,

1. It is a 22 year old suit which has been worn to death in probably rain, snow, etc.
I have taken this into consideration and not shown the parts which have worn out due to age and been repaired; the repair work is truly disgraceful and while it would be normal for A&S to do their own repair work it is not a given. What has been shown is, in my opinion, the result of sloppy work or faulty trimmings (with one exception).

MS-2. Due to its age, it is to be expected that a much of the hand sewing would be coming apart especially if it were worn regularly. Similarly, the canvases would age. Does not a brick building require repointing every 20 years? I would say that if the suit had been relined, some of the issues with the canvas would have been corrected.
I agree with you, however one of the arguments that many use as a justification for hand sewing is that it is supposed to be stronger and last longer, which is often not the case, just the opposite. I merely intend to illustrate that point. The canvas would have to be replaced to correct the hair migration and I doubt they would have done that in the course of a reline. It's a problem with the material they used which caused it to fall apart.


3. Due to age and perhaps poor maintainence there would be sagging of certain parts, such as the outside chest pocket.
The breast welt is usually made in such a manner such as the facing seam will never show, even if the pocket should sag. This pocket was badly made.

4. We do not know if this suit were made for a customer or for one of the cutters or tailors. If it were made for an A & S employee, then certain shortcuts might have been taken to get the suit done quickly.
This suit was not made for an employee, it was made for a person who is known to the public. I have obscured his name on the label for privacy.

Soft tailoring

Having worn the drape coat a bit I have noticed one thing about the comfort- it is markedly more comfortable in the chest, but that has nothing to do with the drape allowance (actually, the drape in the chest bugs me a little when I move my arm forward).

Drape and soft tailoring have often been confused and I am inclined to think that the softness of the construction has much more to do with the comfort than the drape. While I have cut soft coats in the past, one thing I have not done is to put the chest on the bias; I am convinced that this is giving a lot more comfort than a straight-cut chest would since the hairline is not impeding forward movement. I think my next experiment will be to cut a clean-cut coat with a soft-construction and bias-cut chest to compare with the drape coat. I guess I'll have to keep this a while longer.

Drape, part 3

Coat's done.

Meh.

For all the fuss they make over the comfort of drape, I expected the clouds to part, rays of sunshine to burst forth and choirs of angels to sing when I put this on. It's soft, it's light, it's comfortable, but is it really all that much more comfortable than the starch and armor that I normally wear?

No.

In part, because of the sleeve. People have this funny notion about sleeves and their fullness. Despite what most people think, the neapolitan sleeve is not the fullest; in fact, it is one of the smallest. And neither is the A&S sleeve (I hate to burst your bubble, Mr Hitchcock, but EVERYBODY fulls a large sleeve into a smaller armhole, not just you guys). The rope shoulder is the fullest sleeve up top; that's what makes the rope. You have to fill in all the extra room with wadding to make it clean, otherwise you wouldn't have "soft ripples" like the spalla camicia, you would have Niagra Falls. I can then taper from that fullness toward the wrist and have a sleeve that is full up top but trim at the bottom. Much more modern and appealing to my eye. People don't usually have fat elbows, and extra space around the lower bicep or elbow is not actually more comfortable. The key is to have more space ABOVE the breast line. In this, a rope-shouldered sleeve is the fullest and affords the greatest amount of movement. That is why I have more movement in the POW jacket picture below, even though it is lean-cut than I do in this drape coat. Of course, if the armhole were in the wrong position, nothing is going to comfortable.

Does this coat suit me better? Probably. I'm still not thrilled about it, though that may change. Since it is a sport coat it is not bad, but I think a business suit cut like this would not feel right. Not for me, anyway. I'll wear it a bit but I have a feeling this is going to end up on ebay.

Drape, part 2

I have since found some things out about A&S and drape.

I didn't think that the full canvas would have been cut on the bias- Sator showed me a oage from Whife in which he indicates that it was, in fact, done on occasion, but I get the impression he did not favor it.

Edwin DeBoise, of Steed (who is former A&S cutter) pointed out in a LL post that A&S only cut the chest canvas on the bias, as I suspected.

Bengalstripe posted some photos of the insides of an A&S garment here and it appears that they use linen canvas, not hair canvas. Interesting, but not for me.

Upon reflection, I have changed my mind about the spalla camicia thing. While the purpose is not to reproduce a period A&S coat, it does seem that the spalla camicia was a later invention. I am not sure if the seam should be opened, though, since several photos indicate that it was not, however there was no or little wadding which would have made a rope-type shoulder. the photos posted also clearly show a little padding in the shoulder of the A&S garment, but I am omitting it in mine. I have drafted a nice trim sleeve using my own ever-developing system, and this time I got everything to match nicely in the back and still fit the way I want. Yesterday I was not feeling so good about the coat, feeling that there was just way too much drape. Now that I have a sleeve in, my feelings are changing.

Here we are at the office, I have one sleeve basted in, and placed on a tailor's dummy which is quite a bit bigger than I so it fills out the coat, but you get an idea of the shape of the coat so far. I am not displeased.





EDIT It looks much better on the dummy than on me. It's now a little rumpled from having been stuffed into a bag but here are two shots anyway. Feeling a little discouraged right now.

Up until now I had only seen the back in the 3-way mirror and a very distinct vertical fold ran down the back, much as I had expected it to, however I didn't have a sleeve on it yet. Now that the sleeve is on and I see it full-on thanks to a tripod and a camera, the fold is no longer visible and I see some cleaning I have to do. So is this to do with the angle of vision or the weight of the sleeve or both? The back now looks clean (well, not clean, but not drapy)- can this be also a result of the weight of the cloth? It is a good 3/4" than I normally cut my back, which is twice the drape allowance given in Regal's. I am starting to think it is possible to conceal a great amount of drape in the back without it looking too messy. Definitely worth more thought.

The front in this photo makes me look about 20 pounds heavier than I am. Again, maybe camera angle and the fact that it is not finished. Note the high position of the breast welt- I had to bring the chest dart higher than I normally would because the fullness of the chest seemed to sag much too low. This is probably a feature of the style and maybe I should have left it as is, but I did not like it. What seemed like a huge amount of drape before I had sleeves on is again, not so apparent, but again, probably camera angle.

To drape or not to drape

I'm getting ahead of myself (again). The windowpane coat is finished but I'm going to wear it and abuse it for a while before making any further observations on it. On to my next experiment.

A whole lot of fuss is made over the drape cut, some claiming it to be the ultimate in bespoke silhouettes and others deriding it as just bad cutting. Many people aren't very clear about just what drape is, especially since what is made nowadays as drape is perhaps far from what was being made in its heyday. The proponents of it claim that it is not only more elegant, it is also more comfortable. I favor a clean-cut chest over drape and feel quite strongly about it, however I have never worn a drape coat and I am also not so much of a testa dura to not put it to the test. So my next experiment- to cut myself a drape coat and do the wear-test.

First, what is drape? Opinions can differ on the details, but drape is primarily characterized by soft vertical folds of excess cloth around the scye, on the premise that this affords more movement or comfort. It seems to have been made popular (some claim it was invented) by Frederick Scholte, a famous cutter at Anderson & Sheppard, a Savile Row house. EDIT- I AM INFORMED THAT SCHOLTE TRAINED A&S CUTTERS BUT WAS NOT, HIMSELF, AN EMPLOYEE OF A&S. Cutting manuals of the time state that it was not clear where the drape came from, whether from England or the States or even Europe, so I wonder if it really was invented by Scholte or the fact that he popularized it misleads us. I don't know. They also pioneered a "soft tailoring" school which sometimes confuses people, since a suit can be clean-cut but be soft, and a draped suit can be structured. Here are a few examples, the first being Mr. Hitchcock, the current head cutter at A&S, and one of them being a very extreme version, just in case you missed it.







The same vertical fold would appear at the back of the scye.

I have two texts which give instructions for drafting a drape coat- one is Whife's Modern Tailor, Outfitter and Clothier of London from the late 40's, and Regal's Garment cutter, which, if I am not mistaken, dates from 1933 so they are both from the period of greatest popularity of the style. Regal's gives a draft with a moderately small drape allowance- 1" on the half while Whife gives well over 1 1/2" on the half; Whife also gives options for a closer-fitting seat and appears to be more of what we see in the drape cut. One feature it does include is a front dart which extends all the way to the hem, something that we rarely see except on Rubinacci, some Huntsman and perhaps a few other Neapolitan tailors. I know that this was hugely popular in Naples at around the time that English tailoring was catching on there, and I would prefer a cleaner seat so I chose to use Whife's draft with dart extending to the hem. It is the first time I have drafted and cut this sort of thing and it posed a certain challenge where matching the pocket was concerned. More one that later.

The draft instructions are actually manipulations to the regular draft so I started by drafting a pattern to their standard grid, then followed their instructions for turning that pattern into a drape coat. I made the pattern without a separate side body, another thing which is new for me. One of the reasons I am doing this is to see exactly what the drape coat of the day would have looked like and felt like so I am trying to stick to it to the letter. Being a checked fabric, I have left the sleeve until I am happy with the fit of the coat since changes to the armhole will affect how well (if at all) the checks match. Once I get the armhole nailed down I will draft a sleeve to fit it, using my own sleeve drafting system, not Whife's.

Here is part of the instructions for the drape manipulations- you can see there areas which are getting larger, and also the extreme straightening of the neck point. Further manipulations include cutting through the front to open it up and create the long form dart



One thing that Scholte was known for doing was putting the canvas on the bias. I have been trying to get a look inside vintage A&S jackets to see if the whole front was on the bias or just the chest part; I suspect it was just the chest part. The large piece of canvas that goes all the way down the front is quite supple and I see no reason to put it on the bias. The chest, however, has stiffer hair running across it but not lengthwise; putting this on the bias, running diagonally toward the top of the shoulder, would give dimensional stability but be softer when the arm was reaching forward. It would also allow the extra cloth in the scye to drape and form that famous fold- otherwise the crosswise hairline would just fill the chest out and it would be less evident. So I am cutting the main front on the straight and the chest canvas on the bias. I am not putting any other chest plates or shoulder reinforcement pieces a I would for a fully constructed garment, nor am I putting a shoulder pad.

I have done two fittings so far (which is hard to do on yourself, even with a 3-way mirror) and this is what the coat is starting to look like. The bag is a skein of silk thread- the way most finishing threads are sold, as opposed to on spools. You cut one end of the skein and that makes pieces of thread just the right length, and all the same length. The thread is pre-waxed.



It was very tempting during fittings to clear the scye (clean up the chest) since to my stubborn eye it just looks wrong. But I resist! It is quite a lot of drape, even though I allowed the minimum suggested by Whife.

Manipulations with the iron play a big role in shaping so I will note now what I did. Since the chest seems amply big on its own, the only manipulation was a bit of shrinking of the scye near the front pitch notch. I stretched the neck and first two inches of the front shoulder to give the forward pitch, and that is all I did to the front. The side seams were stretched as usual, as well as the blades of the back and center back seam (see my previous post on shaping the back). I would normally tape the back scye, drawing it short, but Whife admonishes against it so I did not. That is the full extent of the manipulations with the iron.

Having a seam going down the front means that pockets won't necessarily match at certain parts. Iammatt was kind enough to show me a closeup of one of his Rubinacci coats which they had cleverly managed to disguise this mismatch at the bottom of the pocket. I was not so successful, but I think it has more to do with the width of the check- the check on Matt's coat was much wider. I will do some more looking into this later.

This is Iammatt's Rubinacci. The check mismatch is very well disguised.



Even though I find the drape amount excessive, it was what Whife described so I am going to leave it. Tomorrow I will be able to draft my sleeve and go to that fitting. Then I will post some photos of where I am at with it.