The art of Clothing Construction: Patternmaking, Draping, Grading and Assembly

Defining and Understanding the art of garment construction: These skills are vital and essential to the life cycle of a product and the production of a line or range.
These highly talented individuals can translate all the poetry and creativity of fashion designers into concrete workable and reproducible wardrobe pieces. The patternmaker receives the sketches and mood boards from the fashion designer.
They create the "blue-prints" vital to all creative visions: plotting and drafting the basic measurements and dimensions(sloper pattern) to create the initial prototype of the wardrobe piece.
Working closely with the sample maker; the patternmaker plays a critical role in all aspects of garment engineering. After prototype assembly and examination, the patternmaker must alter patterns to conform to the fit and style requirements defined by the fashion designer and the Head of the Collection and Range development.

Flat Patternmaking, Pattern grading and Alterations

Students will study patternmaking procedures using Vauclair's own patented geometric formula: Vauclair Darroux: plotting and drafting patterns by taking measurements or by using standard measurement charts. This exclusive one-of-a-kind system will aid and assist the candidate in the creation, fabrication and assembly of a complete range of wardrobe pieces. Students will also receive complete training in the vital art of pattern grading and alterations.

Draping: The basic knowledge of this vital procedure in patternmaking is to provide excellence in fit, cut and form: Preparing shells: from flat technical drawings to cut-out muslin pieces and assembly on dress forms. This technique provides a muslin prototype that is transformed directly into a garment piece in the desired fabric.		CAD: Computer Assisted Design/ Digital Design Using the acquired knowledge in basic patternmaking and grading the student will learn to use the most cutting edge technology in CAD software today. This technique allows students to enter measurements and dimensions into the program and work directly with a pictoral representation of the wardrobe piece on screen to alter, transform, grade or establish and experiement with new families of design and style.

The patternmaker is the essential go-between consulting directly from the design house to clothing manufacturer production teams in France and all around the world. The patternmaker creates sourcing documents and design/tech packages and conforms to the fit and measurement standards, verifies all prototypes sent out to manufacturing bodies.

The patternmaker may be called upon to perform quality control on-site in the manufacturing factories on fabricated wardrobe pieces or anytime throughout the assembly and fabrication procedure: fittings, intial prototype creation, factory samples.