3D Modelmaking "for girls" - The overlooked engineering skill of pattern cutting - EMF 2026

[applause] Hello. Um, uh, my name's Amy Jeskins. I'm, um, a costume maker and I also run the costume and wigs, hair and makeup departments at, uh, an off-western theater called the Domar Warehouse in London. Um, apologies, I am an an analog person and we'll go into that in the talk. So, I've got my bits of paper. So, um I I hope I'm not um glued to them too much. I'll try and look up and blah blah blah. And we've got some lovely slides, so you can look at those instead of me. Um so, I've been working in theater for um about 20 years, making costumes, as I say, working in wardrobes, things like that. During that time, I've made suits, corsets, uh ball gowns, um magical quick change outfits, um hats, a 6-ft tall worm, um and if you can believe it, this is two different kinds of uh gorilla toys come to life. So, this is the same character uh depicted in two different designers um imaginations. Um, my most famous costume, I'm very pleased to tell you, it was actually for uh Mary in the TV show Ghosts, which you might have seen. Um, I cannot tell you how exciting it was the first time I saw someone cosplay as one of my costumes because I hadn't done much TV and film and I was I was really pleased. I still haven't. Um, but that was pretty exciting. Um, with all that in mind, I want to highlight to you that my industry, although it is um, deeply connected to the fashion industry, it's is still quite analog. Um, we we make things bespoke. Um, some people might even call us backwards. Um, compared to sort of fashion and large scale garment construction. Um, we rarely use computers or or digital patterning because it's often literally one of a kind. Um, so I want to give a special shout out. She's not here, but my friend Lucy Shilton, she gave me loads of advice um about specialist knowledge about p pat pattern cutting software um because she's doing a PhD on it. Um uh [snorts] all of this is to say that I've got a bit of a bias towards a more theatrical or historical viewpoint um rather than sort of fashion. Um, I also make quite a lot of few generalized sweeping statements um that I can't back up with evidence. What can I say? I'm not scientific. Um, [snorts] I will also say this talk discusses about gender and how it's represented in industries. I am fully aware that gender is a spectrum and it also doesn't determine the things you're good at and the jobs you like doing. There are boys that like sewing. There are girls that like engineering and technology. And there are non-binary people who like both or neither. Um, for the purposes of my talk, I do generalize. It is often in a historical context. So, sorry about that. Okay. I enjoy all aspects of my job, but I particularly enjoy pattern cutting and pattern manipulation as we would call it. [snorts] Um, I'm going to try as best as I can to give you the basics and how we put these skills into practice. But first, to break up the talking, here's a little video clip. To the naked eye, a suit appears to consist of two parts, a jacket and trousers. But those two seemingly solid parts are composed of four different fabrics. cotton, silk, mohair and wool. Now those four fabrics are cut into 38 separate pieces. The process of size and forming to join in those pieces requires no fewer than 228 steps. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. [music] So the first step is measurement. [music] But measurement [music] doesn't mean just reaching for your tape. So many inches here, so many inches there. No, no, no. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> You cannot make something [music] good until you understand who you're making it for. So, that is a really useful little tiny clip from a film to give you kind of a a sense of what might be happening when someone is laying out and cutting a piece of tailoring. The simple version of pattern cutting is that you are drawing up a series of 2D shapes that will connect together to form around a 3D body. Um they also take into consideration um changes in the shapes that include stylistic or comfort choices. Um there are two ways to draft a pattern. Flat patterning or draping. These are two uh examples of pattern blocks. So there is a bodice and then a sleeve which is interconnected why which is why it's laid over the top. [snorts] In flat patterning you draw out the flat version of the garment onto the paper. here front and back are represented but it's assumed that the average person is relatively symmetrical. So actually you draw half of the front and half of the back. So you'll see on the um the part with the lower dip in the top right that's the front line and then there's the back line on the other side and you when cut it out you fold it and then open it out. This is a basic block. And then you could use this as a template to cut your fabric. You always add a little bit extra for your seam allowance. You can sew it together. Um, and [snorts] uh, the basic block is very basic as you can see. Once uh, it goes around the body, you'll be able to add on and adapt uh, to create the styles and details that you want. As you heard from the clip, there's a two-piece suit will have 38 separate pieces. Um, some simple garments have fewer. Um, complex ones have many, many, many more. [snorts] Um, you can also further shape the fabric with what we call darts, which are tucks in the fabric that you sew to make it fit around a 3D body. Some pattern cutters who are really experienced can draw these things from memory um, and will instinctually know the proportions uh, and shapes to draw by using a comprehensive set of bodily measurements. And here is the set of measurements that I would use to draft a block and start making something from scratch. [snorts] Most people follow a set of instructions that have been developed using uh the mathematical averages um of the shapes and proportions of the human body. There's no um particular uh one version of these. So these are just two of those sets of instructions to make those two blocks I just showed you. So the bodice and the sleeve. And as you can see, they're relatively complex. People get to know um and learn. They can skip steps or or uh you know, not look at their paper. Um but this is the basic moment steps you would go to to make your block. Um [snorts] everybody's got their favorite. Um these are just a few of the most popular pattern cutting books. It uh some people even write their own. Um once the pattern's complete, you then obviously adapt it. Um and then you make a version in plain fabric. We would call that a twile. And then you can make any changes, have another fitting, and then there's your final garment. >> [snorts] >> Um, the other way to create a pattern is what's called draping. And I've got a little example to play whilst I talk. [snorts] So, in this way, you take your measurements, but uh it does require you to have a a dummy, a dress maker's dummy that basically is the same measurements as the person you're making for. Um, [snorts] you can pad them out to size, but again, that's an extra step. You mark it up on the mannequin. um those key reference points that you'll see there. So bust and waist and and down the center. And then you drape the fabric over the mannequin, cut it and pin it in the way you wish. And then you use these pieces of fabric to make a pattern. Both of them have their advantages and their disadvantages, but um as you can imagine, when you're making a really bespoke garment, some people struggle to find a mannequin or or make it fit um the person they're making for. I always favor flat flat patterning. Draping is more often used if you're creating couture garments in the fashion industry where everything is is made to sample sizes um and then the models fit the clothes rather than the other way round. >> [snorts] >> um as described these two methods are standard in the costume industry because it's bespoke but just um uh like most other industries uh the event of CAD has allowed fashion in particular to come become more digital. >> [snorts] >> Um, a company called Electra uh started making uh basic digital 2D pattern drawing and uh grading which is the process of making patterns bigger or smaller um software in the ' 70s. But now there's several other programs that have been developed specifically for garment pattern making. Um there are programs such as clo 3D which um you have the ability to draw the patterns up. You can put them on the 3D model. Um, you can even make the 3D model move and you can see how it would work on an actual body and you can even import different fabric assets. So, uh, different fabrics will make the clothing move differently. But yet Lucy's really big takeaway was that without previous knowledge of pattern cutting and um uh in general how human bodies and clothing work, it's it's almost impossible to actually utilize this technology. Um you need to draw the pattern up yourself. It's just that instead of pen and paper, you use uh the mouse. um you still need to have knowledge of fabrics, how to adapt the shapes, um where to put straight lines and where to put curves. Recently, some programs have actually started adding draping functions, although uh to to to quote Lucy directly, they didn't really come out resembling patterns. Um, of course technology is going to improve, but for now there still needs to be a huge amount of specialist knowledge of fabrics and pattern cutting to use any of these tools to your advantage. So, why the heck have I brought 3D modeling into this? Um, I've got another clip for you now with uh one of my favorites, probably lots of people's favorites, Adam Savage. A sewing machine is a the sewing machine can be a concerning device. It can really it can really ruin your day. And yet getting good at operating a sewing machine is really one of your finer translatable maker skills. I'm serious. Um, sewing I don't think it's tooh. Let me stop moving this around and let me make my point. Sewing is like a gateway drug to thinking through complex problems. It seems really simple culturally. We make it women's work. Uh and that's how we couch it as like somehow that it's let me tell you real sewing at any kind of level of proficiency is a bloody magic trick. Um sewing like mold making involves mental frames that require one to think inside out and backwards. It requires one to work on an order of operations that is often taking into account the reverse and making sure that that order allows. Yeah, it is it's a really really important skill. And if you learn how to sew, you're mostly on your way to carpentry and welding and sheet metal work. I'm not kidding. These are planer forms meeting under rules and conditions. And if you can make us if you can make a sleeve work, I swear to God, you could build a house. Um, I recognize that as a bold statement. Let me back that up with just a little bit of uh institutional knowledge. the um the patience it requires to understand the patience and the institutional knowledge. It requires to understand fabric, how it moves, where the weave is going to sit on a piece of a panel of a piece of clothing and how these front top and back panels are going to meet this sleeve and allow it to not look goofy no matter how you're moving your body. the sensitivity to do those basting stitches to get that sleeve close then a second set of basting stitches to get even closer than a third set of basting stitches to get like I I don't know how to sew at a super high level but I do understand some of the requirements of sewing at a high level and it's about it's about patience and it's about thinking inside out and backwards so don't put it in your mind as something minor man cuz it will it will hurt you [laughter] if you go in thinking you know what you're doing. Um, >> there we go. And, uh, I captioning that was really tricky because of course I let the the software do it and then I had to edit literally everything he said cuz he's basically lost for words um, at the uh, at the thought of sewing. So, I looked um, over all sorts of definitions of 3D modeling. The one that I thought actually summed it up best was jolly old Wikipedia obviously. Um, so 3D modeling is a process of developing a mathematical coordinate-based representation of the surface of an object in three dimensions by manipulating edges, vertices, and polygons in a simulated 3D space. Three-dimensional models represent a physical item using a collection of points in 3D space connected by various geometric entities such as triangles, lines, curves, etc. Um, knowing now what we've briefly touched on about pattern cutting, I hope you can see the similarities. Um, but sewing goes much further than that. As Adam Savage says, sewing is just planer forms meeting under rules and conditions. To draft a pattern that works, you need to know your materials. You need to know how to work with them. You have to have a deep knowledge of how a human body moves and the infinite variety of shapes and sizes that they can come in. I've made um structural garments like corsets and bodesses that sculpt, change, lift, bare weight of the human body. Um [snorts] these uh you can use uh fabrics, you can use uh sort of sewing techniques to mold pieces of fabric into a curved surface that skim the torso that weren't flat before. You can literally um stitch and pull in such a way that the fabric becomes curved instead of flat. Um, there is an incredible competition in New Zealand called the world of wearable art and I've got a little mini clip for you of that and see if you think any of these garments actually uh speak of engineering to you. 87 I decided [music] to take art off the wall, put it on the moving human body in the form of art being worn or wearable art. Wearable [music] art to me is art that you can move in and you can perform in something impressive visually. So it has to look incredible on a stage. [music] Wearable [music] art is like a portal into other worlds. You get to [music] come in and create things from your unique creativity that no one else has thought about before. Full creative [music] freedom. Well creates a global platform for creativity and innovation. Platform that's dynamic, inclusive, [music] and multidisciplinary allowing endless and boundless artistic expression. Let's go. >> So when you look up kinds of engineering uh and uh STEM subjects, sometimes it's for universities, institutions, it's a list of the courses they offer, it's very unlikely you'll see anything like patent drafting and garment construction listed there. [snorts] I would argue that it is primarily due to the cultural perception that it is women's work. As Adam Savage pointed out, [snorts] according to engineering.com, women make up just 17% of the engineering workforce um compared to 56% in other occupations. Um almost to prove my point, there actually doesn't seem to be a lot of solid statistics about um fashion and garment industries, but in most places I looked, it suggested it was somewhere between 60 and 80% dominated by women. and costume uh some small studies say it's sits around 80%. But interestingly enough, this wasn't always the case. Up until about uh the 1500s, garments were mainly constructed with uh a slightly less methodical method um called the rock eye method. pattern [snorts] pieces were sort of drawn out by eye um and they just had certain standardized points on the body to to draw from. This was at a time when standardized measurements were very new. Um inches had only been around for a hundred years or so. And so actually the measurements were kept on a a tape with notches along for each customer. They were they were personalized to each customer. And that was the measurements that they used to to draw up the patterns. [snorts] Um garment shapes were were loose um at this time. So I've got an example of a a a shemath. It's uh sort of circa uh 1485. [snorts] Um they uh they're squares usually squares and rectangles that often came straight off the loom. uh or they were divided into triangles um rather than what we would consider form fitting garments today. >> [snorts] >> Um you can see in the pattern for the shmese it's squares and triangles um under the arms which are the sort of four points you can see there they have uh inserted a triangle to give ease of movement whereas today as you might remember from the uh sleeve before we would draw a curve to fit around the top of the arm and and give you movement there. It's it's widely recognized that the first ever pattern cutting book, the the forefather of the the books I showed you earlier, um was written in uh 1580 and it was a Spanish master tailor and mathematician called Juande Al Sega. Sorry about the pronunciation. Um its title directly translates as book of trigonometry, practice, and tracing. >> [snorts] >> In the book's description, the Al Sega states that to use it, you need, and I quote, intimate familiarity with the prevailing standards of tailoring practice, a deep knowledge of fabrics, and a sophisticated grasp of three-dimensional geometry. It [snorts] was part of a huge trend at the time for writing books about applied geometry, mathematical knowledge, but it was a really secretive practice. um it was passed down sort of father to son to preserve that specialist knowledge and also a monopoly on the rich people's money and patronage. It [snorts] was around this time they formed guilds um they acted as gatekeepers for the profession. Apprentices were at the bottom journeymen to um working after their apprenticeship working for the master tailor and then at the top were the master tailor. um you had to uh to become a master teller, you had to submit your masterpiece >> [snorts] >> um to the guild and they would assess it and then you would be allowed to be a lead tailor in the guild and a self-employed master tailor. [snorts] Um it was therefore a strict hierarchy in the industry. Um [snorts] apprentices weren't allowed to join until they went up the career ladder. tailor and dress makers were mainly catering to anyone with quite a lot of money. It was the church, the military, nobility, and royalty. It won't surprise anyone um during this time that right during this time and right up to the industrial revolution that most but not all people working in tailoring and garment construction were men. There were notable exceptions. daughters, wives, and particularly widows were allowed to take over the guild members business, but they weren't allowed to have a say in guild matters. Most women were involved in garment making at home. [snorts] Um they uh pe lots of people suggest the reason that fiber arts were originally assoc associated with women's work is that it's work that you can pick up and put down easily whilst you are caring for children. >> [snorts] >> Um they would often spin yarn and sometimes even weave fabric and make clothes for their families. Although quite often there'd be a local weaver that you could take your homespun yarn to and then uh they would make the fabric for you. Cottish industries sort of grew up. Suppliers came in with fabrics from abroad and then they would make garments and then sell them back and trade them on. Slowly as the ind industrial revolution progressed, spinning, weaving and fabric production became easier with the ad advent of new machinery. And here you have the industrial revolution version of the things before. You got a spinning journey and a power loom. Um, more people were able to afford clothing made to the latest fashions and tailor realized they could make money by teaching their pattern cutting uh to others. More demand meant more need for people sewing and operating machinery. And then the cheapest paid workers, of course, women and children. They created a new gender divide here. Uh more women were officially working in the garment industry, but were getting paid the least and doing the most dangerous jobs. The less said about the children, the better. Um even with all the new innovations, garments weren't cheap. They were constantly mended, repaired, and recycled over and over again, which meant that the women mending and altering these clothes at home would know how to adapt and repair, but not necessarily to patent cut. As we slowly move towards the middle and end of the 19th century, the advent of the sewing machine and the industrial paper maker um brought the invention of commercial patterning. Initially, the tailoring industry was pretty skeptical and uh uh they thought that you couldn't make good quality garments on a sewing machine. Um and they didn't actually pick it up as quickly as home sewers. Um even though initially there was a big concern that uh maybe women wouldn't be able to handle such complex machines um and maybe they would damage their health uh or um maybe even the luxury of not doing loads of hand sewing at home would make them lazy. Um, but now women could make their own garments at home and at relative lightning speed. Ladies periodicals and homemaker books began to publish patterns you could use. It also meant that repairing or making garments took considerably less time and they could focus on other things like getting involved in the suffragette movement. Um, if you can't read that here, this is a cartoon from Punch magazine in 1866. And the draper in the center is saying, "A most wonderful invention indeed, Mom." And it really executes the work so efficiently and quickly that my word, I think there's nothing left for the ladies to do now but improve their intellect. The transformation of um public perception of pattern cutting and sewing was nearly complete. Now, if any old woman at home can do what used to be the preserve of um scholarly gentlemen and mathematical minds, then maybe it wasn't so difficult after all. With the rise of the fashion industry and ready to wear garments through the 20th century, slowly but surely, the general public has somewhat lost touch um with knowing what skills are needed for garment making and fixing. And clothing is cheap enough to buy and throw away. As we all know, that's damaging to the environment. But it does help instill in the general perception that making garments is easy. They're not worth very much and they're quick to produce and anyone can do it. My grandma was um deeply affected um by World War II, living as she did at the time in the East End of London. [snorts] And sadly, she had to stop going to school and get out to work at age 14. She worked as a seamstress for a large part of her life between the 40s and the 70s. [snorts] Um, she still sees herself as not very clever and not very technical and that she worked as a seamstress because she wasn't good enough for anything else. My family were able to improve their financial situation because of my granddad's job. This is the real life representation of the diminishment of the so-called women's work, which may not happen so much in the UK today, but it certainly happens all over the world in factories and sweat shops overseas. When I was deciding what I wanted to do with my life, I was drawn to costume through performance and sewing through textiles. And I was delighted to hear there was a way to do pattern cutting, sewing, and engineering without having to go into the fashion industry. Um, apologies. I know I might go over time slightly. I've got two more two more pages to go. Um, so what about my specialty? Um, costume. Um, is the best that we've got uh some pattern drafting um programs that you actually need a pattern cutting masters to use? Well, the way I personally work is still very analog, but the worlds are coming together. Of course, the software to create 3D patterns will only improve and become easier to use. Some of the big film studios are utilizing 3D scanning, so they have exact mannequins of particular stars. Um, this means that they can perfect the fit of the costumes before they even try them on. Uh, this is all work by a company called FBFX in London. They're at the cutting edge of costume making. They're developing what they call the quintessential FBFX approach, which combines traditional methods with inventive new techniques. They've been working for 30 years, and they integrate vacing, 3D printing, 3D scanning, digital design, um, and, uh, bespoke costume electronics. And I really recommend you check out the website. It's really cool. uh digital um practice also has uh a role to play in costume conservation. A company called Darchchive um are using 3D scanning and their own analog knowledge of garment construction to replicate 3D digital versions of historical garments and fashion pieces. Um this is from their website. By combining 3D technologies and traditional techniques, we create accurate 3D replicas of historical and vintage clothing and accessories. and we offer them freely to visitors. These are not mere representations of an item's appearance. They carry technical information making them insightful educational to tools. Having [snorts] these pieces uh online and uh uh available means that they're handled less and they can be used as a resource all over the world rather than just being housed in one museum. They've even created digital PDF patterns that you can download. Um I think the other big problem that plays into the perception of garment making um is that as opposed to a lot of other engineering garment making blends both practical and artistic concerns. [snorts] I know lots of engineering and product design and all sorts of other things uh has an element of aesthetics but for hundreds of years clothing's been more than just a way to cover up your body and keep you warm. Historically and today, garments reflect culture, class, status, and clothes can be used to enhance and change the shape of the body to suit the societal standards of the time. Um, this has all shaped what we consider fashion. The funny thing is the more you look, the more these things actually blend together. Mathematics is present in some of the most beautiful structures in nature. The Fibonacci sequence, the golden ratio. I've heard mathematicians talk about how beautiful numbers are. And I defy anyone not to see the incredible beauty in a church that's been engineered so well it's stood for a thousand years. [snorts] Right at the beginning I claimed that I'm more artistic, less scientific. But actually I'm going to push back on myself about that. I am both. I think I know that we all as makers know we need to be less binary about it. Um it's not two options. men's work, women's work. It's not uh engineering art. Making things is inherently both and inherently neither. There's a a move towards acknowledging this fact even in the acronym. More people are using the term steam instead of STEM to fully represent how all these subjects overlap. Science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics. Thank you very much. [applause]