The guidelines used while drafting patterns in the tailoring workshop of Bauer Tailor directed the ways of drafting and were strongly connected with the garments being produced. Systematically, the work was very clear, but then it also aimed at a very specific result. This system of traditional tailoring was also understood in the Westwood studio; sometimes garments were designed based on this way of working, but simultaneously, often by questioning it and revolting against it in breaking its rules and conventions. The drafting system of the tailors works from the outside and in towards the body, as Geneviève noted, as it starts with a straight matrix and then removes unwanted space in the form of darts, shaped vertical seams, and shaped shoulder seams. In Geneviève’s garments, however, neither darts nor shoulder seams were anywhere to be found.
In Geneviève’s garments, however, neither darts nor shoulder seams were anywhere to be found.
The time in the Westwood studio changed the basic conditions for the research. Previously, the main focus was on the patterns of the garments to be designed – on elaborations and experiments with two-dimensional shapes that resulted in certain expressions or functions when worn on a three-dimensional body. At the Westwood studio, both the starting point and the results were concerned with three-dimensionality. In numerous fittings, it was mentioned that it is “all about the body, not about the dress or the pattern. What we are interested in is what the dress does with the body”. The notion of considering the body as the centre of attention became even more apparent when meeting and working with Geneviève Sevin-Doering, for whom the pattern was highlighted not as a tool, but as a beautiful notation of the shape that is sculptured directly on the body of the person who is intending to wear the garment, i.e., to work from the body and outward instead of from the pattern towards the body.
The notion of considering the body as the centre of attention became even more apparent when meeting and working with Geneviève Sevin-Doering, for whom the pattern was highlighted not as a tool, but as a beautiful notation of the shape
The guidelines in the tailoring matrix that were used at Bauer Tailors and elaborated on or revolted against at the Westwood studio were completely rejected by Geneviève Sevin-Doering, who, instead, connects her ways of working to pre-tailoring methods of dressmaking. However, an alternative system or model of explanation was not presented or visualised, and when I asked how the more complicated garments and patterns had been created, they were merely explained as being “works of art”.