ultimate tailoring guide
written by Her Royal Dapperness
A brief history of the ready to wear garment industry . . . because the rest of the guide doesn’t make sense without reading this first.
Short of custom ordering all of your clothing (that's what Her Royal Dapperness does; she custom orders all her clothes from herself), you can have your clothing tailored for a better fit. In fact, the ready-to-wear (vs. couture or custom made) garment industry assumed garments would be tailored when it was conceived. Once Upon a Time, you could walk into a store, buy a garment in your size, leave it with the tailor, and have a properly fitting garment in days instead of weeks and at a fraction of the price or without your wife/sister/mother having to lift a finger. Somehow, the last half of that equation has been forgotten in modern day. Now we walk into a store, buy a garment in our size, and walk out with an only-mostly-fitting garment. And then we wonder why none of our clothes fit us. Garment production practices have followed suit and now: No cheap(er) garments leave spare fabric for alterations nor do most better manufacturers. Tailors, on the other hand have taken to shacking up with dry cleaners. And when all else fails, a girl will 'throw on a belt to create waist definition'.
Now, many of you may find these un-tailored garments fit just fine. Actually a solid standard deviation of you should find them good enough. Modern garment proportions and sizing weren't pulled out of a hat or even divined from the gods; they were determined by a massive set of data and analysis of varying human sizes. Modern sizes are a solid guess at what might fit a given person. Approximately. You see, to ensure an accurate fit, every fashion company employs at least one fit model -- a person of an average (if by average you mean ideal(ized)) size who puts on each (designed) garment so designers can see if the design elements are to their satisfaction and that the garments fit well. Designers can see if the garments fit their fit model well. Their fit model who is (approximately) the brand's average (ideal) size. Their fit model who might be three inches taller and two inches smaller than you in the shoulders. But they're 15 and 3/4 around the neck like your are so anything made by this company fits you at the neck and nowhere else.
Does Her Royal Dapperness (HRD) have an issue with the modern garment industry? No, of course not.
So it is left to you, dear consumers, to get your garments to fit you, because you can't get garments that fit you. You may hear that you just have to find the brand that fits your body. A second standard deviation of you will probably be able to find a brand or two that fit you well when none others do (or four, if some brands only fit well for pants and others for shirts and jackets). But even if this brand fits your body, it may not fit your style and personality as well. Or your wallet. Or maybe no brand you have ever tried ever fits you well. (The only brand HRD has found to fit her well is Your Dapper).
Thus: HRD gives you the ultimate tailoring guide for your standard deviant body by a patternmaker and one who generally knows how your garments are engineered. Most people find their garments need to be tailored similarly across brands, so tailoring and alterations are listed by body part, not by garment.