Flats Defined

The unstylized drawings known as flats serve an important purpose in the fashion world, both in-house and for customers. Flats, so named because they are illustrated as a garment laid flat on a table, are clean line drawings that show important construction details.

They show your garment in elegant simplicity, uncluttered by lighting or patterned fabric, not distracting the viewer with the model or location. They answer important questions, like how many panels does this corset have? What lines are created by the seams? Where does this fall on the hip line? On the bust?

 

The Purpose of Flats

Photographs convey a completed work, all the fabrics and trims selected and coordinated just so. It's easy for a consumer to get hung up on incidentals - like not liking the color, or being drawn to a particular lace detail - that exist independently from the core style. When looking at a lineup of your style offerings, a consumer can compare the styles more easily based on a clean, simple drawing that provides a clear point of comparison between the various offerings. This blank slate allows the consumer to project their own vision on your made-to-order style.

 

As a designer, flats are a valuable tool because they allow you to organize your thoughts about a design. Some designers prefer to work more organically, allowing a style to come about as they pattern or drape it. Other designers sketch first, then model their 3D forms based on that design sketch or illustration. If you're creating the sample first, you'll then draw your flat based on the physical garment. If you're drawing first, you'll likely find yourself going back and making corrections once you've done your sample, much like you make corrections to style lines as you go through the various mockup and garment fitting phases. For me, drawing flats has a feeling of finality – I really think through the style much more carefully than when freehand sketching concepts.

The Ability to Draw Flats Well Is a Very Marketable Skill

If you're particularly good at drawing flats, you may find yourself contracting out to other designers. It's a valuable skill, just like being good at pattern drafting or sewing. While fashion illustration is no longer the popular commercial art form it once was, having been replaced by fashion photography, the technical side of it, flats, is a necessity in virtually every fashion company.

When designing for my own line, I prefer to start with the sketch, as I have a heavy emphasis on illustration. If contracted to do flats for another designer, such as my work with Dark Garden, I am usually presented with a finished garment, which I examine on a mannequin/pillow or may even try on. I keep it, or a photograph of it, by me as I work. I confirm the drawing with the production manager or head designer for review, make the final tweaks, then apply the finishing details.

Specs

"Specs" (specifications) are the obsessive compulsive counterpart to flats, wherein all measurements for a garment and complete technical information are documented. Specs and/or flats get sent to pattern makers and sample sewers at the beginning of the production process – they are absolutely vital as an in-house communication tool. Unfortunately, spec drawing is not a skill commonly taught in fashion school, but a solid knowledge with plain old flats serves as the starting point.

Hand-Drawn versus Computer Flats

Computer flats are now standard, but though the method of execution may be different, the rules stay the same. Having good hand-drawing skills helps give you a starting point for your digital rendering. There may even be some rare instances where you blend the techniques, perhaps using a tablet.

As corsets are defiantly and proudly handmade, of course, you may find it more in keeping with your company ethos to use hand drawn flats. However, corsets are also extremely meticulously detail oriented, so unless you have an architectural background you probably won't be able to achieve perfect symmetry and tidiness with hand-drawn media. And, let's face it, we all need an undo command every now and then.

Tip: The Adobe Suite is very expensive, but an incredible asset to anyone working in a design industry. Look into Adobe's education discount – I got an amazing deal on CS4 from the Apple Store when I last upgraded my computer. The price goes from over $1000 to a few hundred, with an additional $100 in savings if you buy a new Mac at the same time. Not a student or teacher? Just give the cash to someone who is. Make sure to have them fill out the education discount verification paperwork, though.

 

 

Let's Get Started: The Croquis

"Croquis" is a generic term for fashion illustration. It can mean a rough sketch or an unclothed template. The croquis for flats is generally much closer to realistic human proportion than the one you'd use for pretty, stylized illustrations, it has a completely static stance, possibly with a variety of arm positions that can be utilized depending on the sleeve style for other garments.

If you have a textbook on fashion illustration, it should have a flats croquis that you can use as a starting point. You can also try our old friend Google, or even create your own completely from scratch. Just remember, you want to keep it completely symmetrical. Try searching for "fashion flats croquis," "fashion flats template," etc. Make sure to take the time to find a croquis you like to start with – this is the basis for all of your flats henceforth. It's like wearing the right style of corset under your vintage or antique style clothing. Your clients need to be able to relate to the drawings, and an oddly proportioned template will also screw with your design sense. You may want to take the figure and maybe reduce the height or increase the width by 10% to bring it even closer to a realistic proportion. This can be done using a plain old Xerox copy machine, Photoshop, Illustrator, or probably even your basic image viewer on your computer. We're going to end up in Illustrator (or the vector program of your choice) to develop these, though, so you might want to just do it there to avoid wasting your computer's memory.

Tip: 9 Heads is the standard text for fashion illustration, but you may be able to find a good text by browsing your local used bookstore. Kathryn Hagen and Bina Abling have also authored strong books on the subject; 9 Heads just happens to be the best-known. Of course, there are also a lot of books by mediocre illustrators so make sure the style jives with your goals before investing.

 

So now that you've chosen your croquis, you need to reshape it for your corsets. This step is perhaps even more important than the initial choice of template, because it's the first opportunity to share your point of view. Out in "the industry," each design company should have its own croquis just like they have their own set of blocks from which they draft their patterns. What is the silhouette you really want your corset to have? How much waist reduction do your corsets give? If you're only aiming for (or achieving) the standard 2" reduction, you only want to take in that waist taper a little bit. Do you favor a narrow, conical rib shape, or a dramatic wasp waist? Is the hip spring sharp and curvy or a gradual easing out? Do you specialize in large busts or perhaps small busts? Try to accurately assess your corsets and clients.

Here I've provided snapshots of my starting croquis (originally received as part of course materials, I believe), the traced layer I use for garment flats, and the figure for corset flats. Please do not trace off my corset template – it is shown as an example only. Take the time to develop one that reflects your own work.

 

"But wait," you cry, "Alter my croquis how?" Well, if you're going for the hand-drawn approach, you'll be doing all of this, including your final flats, on layers of tracing paper. If you're using Illustrator, just import the image and embed it into your new document. Create a new layer and use the pen tool to trace half of the image (you'll mirror it when you're really done), squaring off at the center front as needed, just as you would with patterning. You should also trace the princess lines, adjusting them to match your newly curvy silhouette. Lastly, mark key horizontals on your croquis. The bust apex, the underbust level, the waistline, etc. On my template, I divided and marked several hip levels, indicating the number of inches below the waist. In Illustrator, the line from my pen tool for this portion is red, so that I don't get confused as I draw in black on top of it. You may also find it helpful to reduce the opacity.

Tip: To square a point in Illustrator, click, hold, hit shift, and drag straight out in the direction of the line you're creating. If the next point is somewhere to the right, drag to the right, and vice versa. To practice this technique, you can try making circles using four anchor points. Relatedly, to create an angle instead of a curve at an anchor point, give it an extra click before forming the next point.

Once your croquis is completed to your satisfaction, you can start drawing corsets on it! Make sure to lock the layer so you don't inadvertently change your croquis or draw on top of it within the same layer.

The Simple Flat

As with the croquis, you'll go through pretty much the whole process working on the half, then mirror at the end. Make sure you match the mirrored edge perfectly. Keep "smart guides" and "snap to point" on. I find it extremely helpful to draw each flat on its own layer, but stacked perfectly on top of each other – it makes it very easy to borrow details from one design and paste them into another, be it a style line, ruffle at the bust, or bottom edge shape, etc. You'll definitely want to do this with your grommets and busk, but we won't be getting to that today. Let's start with the basics of using the tools and creating the basic shape before we add those finishing details.

To begin with, define your top and bottom edge shape. Remember to square off the neckline and bottom of your center front if necessary. Obviously certain silhouettes have points at those places (a sweetheart neckline, a pointed Victorian underbust), but if you've got a straight front or simple rounded bottom edge you should square the anchor points.

 

You can finesse the curve by pulling that squared handle closer to or farther from the center front line, adding more points, and tweaking their handles. The side seam point should snap to the side seam line on your croquis below – the hover text by your mouse will say "path" or "intersect." Tap the "V" on your keyboard to move an entire shape/object, "A" to just adjust anchor points or their handles. Select multiple objects or anchors at once by holding down the shift key. Squared anchor points automatically mirror the depth of the squaring, but each side can be adjusted individually afterwards. On occasion, such as where the top neckline meets the side seam here, you may find the handle on your anchor gets in the way more than it helps with the shape. You can remove it simply by dragging it back into the anchor point.

 

(Incidentally, for purposes of this demo, I'm just making up a style as I go along...)

As I work, I find it helpful to toggle the visibility for the croquis layer on and off. It's an important guide for placing style lines, but can also be distracting and interfere with your sense of proportion and line.

 

Once you're happy with your top and bottom edges, copy the side seam from your croquis. Unlock the layer and tap "A" to select points and segments. I'm just going to use a selection box to select a chunk of side seam, but it's also going to pull in a bunch of extraneous information as well. The other option is to manually select just the anchors and line segments you need, but depending on the number of anchor points on your croquis that might be just as tedious. Select what you want, hit command C, lock up and hide your template layer again, switch back to the drawing you're working on, and command F to "paste in front." Lastly, you could just redraw the same shape over the established one – personally, I suspect that I could create the same shape with fewer anchors now that I'm more experienced in Illustrator compared to when I first made this template. However, copying and pasting does lead to perfect consistency and reduces duplication of effort.

Now I've deleted all the unnecessary objects, so I'm going to make the line the same style as the existing ones by using the eyedropper tool, which is, appropriately, accessible by tapping "I" on your keyboard. I'm big on keyboard shortcuts; you are, of course, perfectly entitled to hunt down the eyedropper over in your toolbar.

 

Well, that's all well and good, except the line is way too long. What you want to do is add anchor points ("+" on your keyboard) at the intersection of the SS and top and bottom edges. Then hit "-" to delete the anchor points at the end. You'll use this technique a lot, so get used to it. Be aware that by default, the program will try to add the anchor point to the line segment that is on top unless you select another one. Don't forget to snap your new anchor point directly at the intersection of the two lines.

 

Now I've got this weird chip in the corner of my drawing. You want to join the two shapes, so using the anchor selection tool, make a selection box just around that corner. The regular selection tool is a solid black arrow, the tool for anchor and handle manipulation has a white interior. Likewise, points that are selected are black, the unselected points are white boxes. Illustrator will show you the handles attached to the selected segments, but you can ignore them for now. Command J will "join" the two anchors. If they're in the same place, they become a corner. If they are offset from each other, Illustrator will give you a line between the two. I sometimes use this to create, for example, a center front line.

 

Tip: If you have extra anchors that somehow snuck in, it will make your job very difficult as you have to hunt them down by moving the objects and using command A to select all and highlight floating anchors. Sometimes the anchors are actually on the line segment – zoom in as close as possible to try to ferret them out. I've even been known to delete line segments, check for anchors, then paste in front and reconnect them. Mostly these problems arrive as you build on top of previous work, so just try to work as clean as possible and you'll thank yourself later.

You are now ready to start adding the seam lines for your corset! Tap P to go back to the pen tool. Remember to start and end your seams on the edges. Use your patterning skills as you plan the draft, if you're not referencing an existing sample. You'll be utilizing the same skills and tools that you used for the top and bottom edges.

 

At this point, you can simply add your center front line, mirror the image, and call it a day. Select all, Transform menu -> Reflect -> Copy. Click and drag while holding down the shift key to keep it on the same horizontal plane and the center fronts should snap together. Many corsetmakers use this efficient, simplified style to convey only the basic essential information about style lines.

 

Save your file as an image by going to File -> Export. Select the appropriate file type, quality, and resolution for your needs.

Stay tuned for a future feature on advanced fashion flats, the details that take them from clean and elegant to exquisitely informative, and line sheets, the corsetmaker's version of a menu or catalog.

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