Apr 20, 2012

Diagonal Waist - Style of Clothing Considerations

Hi Rebecca, I'm responding to your Post: Diagonal Waist, Part 1 Rebecca.
I understand your waist tilts to the front in a deep diagonal from the small of your back.  So how you need to look at this is by what you like to wear and what looks best on you.
If you want your shirts/blouses tucked in, then this will emphasize the diagonal line from back to front.  And this also means that for your blouses/shirts, you only need to make sure the hem is long enough to tuck in and not worry about fit, as you'd likely not sew the waist fitting darts in anyway.  BUT, if you tuck in, then the skirt waist edge or pants waist edge would need to be angled downward toward the front to fit the flow of your body.

But if you want to wear your blouses/shirts out over top of skirt/pants, then once again, you would maintain an even hem length on the blouse - so it looks best from a visual perspective and you would need to make the back as long as the front and long enough to skim over your hip area.  Again, you would not likely stitch in the waist fitting darts - unless for some special design.  The pant or skirt waist edge would need to be sloped as they will gravitate to your waist indent anyway.

Now to a 1 or 2 piece dress.  Here's where it becomes more of a gray area.  First ask yourself if you wear dresses?  If so, do you want them to follow the diagonal of your waist.  If the answer is NO, then you'd make a one-piece looser fitting dress in the waist area, so that it FLOWS from your bust down to your hips and doesn't emphasize your diagonal waist.  If the answer is YES, then you'd need to follow the contours of your body and you'd need to slope the angle of the bodice - short back length with longer front  - for a 2-piece dress, or if it's a one-piece dress, then once again you'd likely skim the side seam from your side seam down to the high hip - leaving the waist area kind of nondescript, so that it doesn't emphasize the angle of your waist.

So when you are trying to get a body blueprint, you also have to take in to consideration what is going to look best on your body.  What do you wear?  And what do you feel comfortable in?  This is all such personal preference.

Now to the slope of the waist edge.  You reference pg. 16 #11 of the Dress Kit Instruction book.  You would be the opposite of this.  So instead of adding height to CF, you would be reducing height, so that it does follow the angle of your waist.  Then, because the side seams are the SAME length, CB would sit where it is supposed to and CF would sit lower.

Yes...I think you are getting this!!  I hope this answer helps to sort it all out for you.  So much of fit depends on our body shapes and what looks good on us.  We may want a perfect fit, but then we must step back and ask if the body is perfect.  We need to deal with this body and what looks best on it.

Also, a great new video to watch to help you identify your waist line/level is:
 

Kindly, Glenda

1 comment:

  1. Rebecca and Glenda,

    I've been reading the continuing saga of Rebecca's Journey with growing interest. At first I wondered why you focused so much of your public blog on one person's fitting problems. It seemed that everywhere I looked, Rebecca's fitting problems were there.

    However, as I continued reading her posts and your responses, I realized that Rebecca's body contours mimic so many of us to some degree or another, my own included! Many of us turned to your clothing design system because of this.

    As a result of this series of postings, I'm learning many very useful tuning tips that I can apply to my apple-shaped body.

    One thing I'd like to see addressed for Plus sized ladies is adding gussets for on-demand wearing ease. I'm a working professional in a Corporate office and often need to wear business attire such as pant and skirt suits with blouses and jackets. In addition, I live in Phoenix, AZ, where it gets VERY hot in May through September. During those months, we are allowed to wear business casual clothing, so this is when the over-blouses and tank top styles with skirts and pants come in to play. Rebecca also mentioned this form of attire as one of her goals.

    I'm thinking about using linen for the tank top part of the two-piece ensemble; and because I'm so thick-waisted, I'm considering adding gussets to the back bodice where they would be concealed by the over-blouse, but still perform the job of on-demand wearing ease, such as when sitting or bending over. I don't necessarily want to tuck in the tank top because it would add to my waist bulk, so I'm considering a shorter bodice length that would end about two inches below my waist to give the appearance of being tucked in. I'm thinking the gussets would allow me to taper in at the hemline of the bodice as much as possible, allowing a more tailored fit.

    What do you think?

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