If you open up your browser and type in “DIY dress form” you will find far more tutorials and blog posts than you can read in a day. A dress form is a fabulously useful thing if you make your own clothes and many a seamstress has had a go at making her own body-cast at home. This article aims to consolidate some of the vast amount of information available online, and discuss a number of different techniques and their various pros and cons.

 

I’ll go over the four most common techniques, look at some of their variations, and discuss their suitability for draping/moulage and for displaying one’s corsets.

 

The Duct Tape Dress Form

This is by far the most common method of making a replica of your body and is pretty simple to do.

You gather together your materials – an old T-shirt, some cling wrap, scissors, marker pen, string and plenty of duct tape – and find a warm room and a willing helper. Then you put on your old T-shirt and start covering yourself in short (4-8 inches/10-20 cm) pieces of duct tape until you have covered your entire torso. This video gives a good overview of the process, and you can find a tutorial with stills here.

The two main tips for success seem to be that

1. The curvier the area you are taping, the shorter your tape strips should be. I.e. over the bust, and often the sides of the waist and around the tummy. Long strips of tape will wrinkle, look messy and add extra bulk.
2. Before working on the waist and top hip, stick a band of tape right around your legs just below the apex of your bottom – this will stop the fabric of your tshirt sliding up and accumulating at your waist.

The whole process is similar to Lisa Armstrong’s tutorial for 3D pattern making, so do have a look at her article to see how she works through the process.

When making a dress form you won’t want to cut it up like Lisa does to make a pattern. You carefully cut the finished cast off the model, and then tape it up and stuff it, integrating a stand or hanger as you go (more on stands further down).

Once your form is complete you can mark your waistline, bust line and other important points, which you the use to draft patterns by draping fabric over the form.

This process is the quickest of the methods I discuss here, and I would say the second cheapest in terms of materials, but it does have a number of limitations. You cannot stick pins into a duct tape dress form (well, not without them getting covered in stickiness) and they are not the prettiest of the lot. I certainly wouldn’t be using one of these for display!

I also don’t think that this kind of form would respond well to being laced into a corset – I think one would crumple the tape exterior past the point where it could spring back into shape, making this not very suitable for fitting corsets on.

Some blogs also suggest that duct tape forms have a limited lifespan, saying that they may lose their shape over time. I would imagine that this will be at least partly dependant on the stuffing you use though, so there may be room to improve. In any case, these are so quick to make that you could just make a new one if your old one wears out.

I do have a few ideas on how a duct tape form could be improved for more general dress making use, but I’ll wait to discuss those in my next article.

 

The Paper Tape Dress Form

This method is similar to the duct tape dress form, except that you use paper craft tape which has a water-based adhesive on one side instead of duct tape. This technique has been in use for many years and dress forms made from this tape are surprisingly sturdy and attractive.

This tutorial on Instructables gives a good description of the process.

However, you still can’t stick pins in a paper tape form, and they certainly aren’t suitable for lacing a corset on. If you made one very neatly it might work for display, but it wouldn’t be my first choice.

The other disadvantage of the paper tape form is that it can take some time for the tape to dry, and you can’t cut it off before that, so expect it to take longer than the duct tape form.

I imagine this method would result in a good from for testing fit, but I’m not sure how easy it would be to drape on. This method probably costs a little less than the duct tape form (duct tape is more expensive than paper tape), but is slightly more hassle for a pretty similar product.

 

Moulded Dress Forms

There are a number of tutorials for making a cast of your body and then filling it with a rigid substance to form an exact replica. Most of these tutorials use pre-bought bandages impregnated with a form of plaster of Paris that dries rapidly.

I found a very comprehensive tutorial for this method can here. I recommend a visit to Melissa’s official website  – she has some really cute lingerie that is inspiring me to go back to FR's lingerie-making articles and get stitching.

To make one of these you don a pair of knickers and a well-fitting bra (these will never be the same again, so don’t wear your favourite ones), slather yourself in lotion and get a friend to dip short pieces of bandage in water and then smooth them onto your body.

This picture shows me getting plastered (pun intended) with my lovely friend Caite. Caite and I are long time crafty consorts and I can’t think of a better ally in this project - which is great as this process does get pretty intimate!

 

You then stand around trying not to breath or slouch until the plaster of Paris is dry enough to hold its shape, then get your friend to cut you out with a pair of bandage scissors (theoretically, you could use a craft blade, but DON'T - it's dangerous and nerve-wracking. Use your common sense!).

 

Once the mould is completely dry you reassemble it - you could wrap tape around the whole form, tie with string or stitch through the plaster with sturdy thread – and fill it.

 

The most common filling is expanding insulation foam, which is sprayed into the mould in stages and left to cure. When dry, the mould is removed (sometimes with difficulty) and the foam body cast is covered in quilt batting and fabric. Melissa draped her cover on the mannequin, but you could get away with using a four way stretch fabric and pinning it taut over the form.

 

This kind of form gives a very accurate replica of your body - and you can stick pins in it! It is, however, a very labour intensive process and is the most costly method in this roundup.

An alternative method of making a moulded dress form would be to make a plaster cast and mould a papier-mâché impression, as described here.

Once the papier-mâché cast is dry, you glue the sections together and cover the form in fabric.

Many traditional dress forms were made using papier-mâché, so this method has a certain period authenticity, but again, you can’t stick it with pins, so no voodoo dressmaking for you!

As you can see from my pictures, I started following Melissa’s tutorial, but for the moment the cast is languishing in a cupboard waiting for me to summon the resources to move on to the next step (which may tell you all you need to know about the effort level required in this method.)

This is definitely the most expensive and involved of all the methods I’ve found, but it does give great results! I also imagine some sewists might be put off by having to deal with all the hardware components, in which case they could either grab their overalls and face their fear, or realise that they don’t need such a souped-up form and go with one of the other methods mentioned here. I love hardware so I’m having a go – report to follow when I’m done!

 

Padding a Standard Dress Form

 

Padding a pre-bought dress form is an established technique which is used by many couturiers to make custom garments. It’s also a great way to make your dress form adjustable without the disadvantages of a conventional adjustable form – like cracks and dials just where you want to stick a pin!

It is simple in theory – you take a series of photographs and measurements of the body you want to replicate and build up the shape with quilt batting. This can be a bit of a puzzle as matching someone’s shape can be a tricky. Still, the whole process is completely reversible so you can always backtrack if you don’t get something right, and I think I could happily potter away at this while watching a movie.

For a full description of this process you can have a look at this blog by La Sewist, AKA Bunny, who generously agreed to let me share some of her images with you.

 

Once you have padded your form out (Bunny used a bra that fits her well to get the bust shape right) you can make a cover for it to preserve the shape of the batting and make it look pretty. In the pictures shown here you can see a princess-slip cover made in a non-stretch fabric (read Bunny’s blog for a really nifty tip on how the get an extra smooth and tightly-fitting cover), but I have also seen versions of this where the maker has simply pulled a fitted stretch dress over the form, or made a simple tube out of stretch fabric.

 

If you already have a dress form that is a little smaller than you are (you want the form to start off smaller than you so that you can build up to the right proportions without it getting too big) then this looks like a great option. All you need is your time and some of the fabric from your stash.

If you don’t have a dress form, then you would have to buy one first which, here in South Africa, would be upwards of R500. I’m not sure what such things retail for in other countries, but I shouldn’t imagine there would be too much of a price difference. You could also keep an eye on your local classified section and buy a second hand dress form – you are going to be covering it anyway!

I really like the idea of this for draping one-off pieces for clients (and for myself!). I will definitely be acquiring a form to work on, but I may not go to all the effort of making the tailored cover. If I were making a dress form specifically for myself I might reconsider that though...

 

Fabric Dress Form

One can also achieve good results with fabric dress forms. The idea is that you make a fabric shell using a block pattern and stuff it until it holds its shape.

You could make a shell to fit your body perfectly, like the cover Bunny made for her padded mannequin, or you can make a more stylised body shape. Totally up to you!

Atelier Sylphie sells this vintage pattern on her Etsy site, and I also found this pattern which was drafted by Hulya Hipsylon of Peau d’Ame Corsets and generously shared on the Facebook group Learn How to Make Corsets Like A Pro. Hulya agreed to my sharing her pattern here, and below you will see pictures of the display forms I made with it.

Fabric dress forms are pretty cheap to make – all you need is your pattern, some fabric, stuffing and your usual sewing gear. They can also be quick to make, depending on the pattern you are using, and can be made up in pretty fabric so they are presentable too.

These forms are probably the most accessible to sewists who don’t have a background in general DIY as they use standard sewing skills, so they make a good introduction to the process.

These forms can be used to drape on and you can stick them with as many pins as you like, which is a definite advantage.

I had good results with Hulya’s pattern and definitely recommend it (further down you’ll find my account of making this form).

 

Making a Stand For Your Form

There are many ways to stand your mannequin or dress form, and you can really be pretty inventive with cutting and pasting from different methods to find what works for you.

Many people simply buy a stand from a retailer (you can buy stands separately from mannequins, so this isn’t hard) or re-purpose an old stand. If you are padding an existing mannequin then you are likely to have a stand already, or you could make one from an old music stand or hat stand. Maybe you have an old standing lamp you could cut down?  Practically anything with a solid base and a pole sticking out of it would work. Melissa’s made a very practical stand from PVC pipes!

 

Or you could build a coat hanger into the shoulders and hang your form, but I think it’s more convenient for most of us to have the form free-standing. Imagine trying to draft a pattern half in a cupboard...

You should decide what method you are going to use before you start your form though, as you may need to incorporate the stand along the way.

All of the tutorials I have linked to above have different ways of solving this issue, so I recommend going through them to see what you think.

 

Making Hulya’s Fabric Mannequin

In the end I decided to have a go at making Hulya’s fabric mannequin because I thought it would be the quickest route to a presentable mannequin for displaying my corsets.

I had made this half-size version earlier this year, so I knew pretty much how it would come out.

 

I started off by scaling up Hulya’s pattern using Sandra Stuart’s tutorial on pattern scaling, and then took the file off to the print shop as I was too lazy to divide it up into A4 pages, print them at home and then stick them together.

 

I added 1cm seam allowance using my clear ruler, and then cut all of the pattern pieces out.

 

I rummaged in the cupboard for some sturdy fabric that wasn’t too special, cut my pieces and stitched them together, leaving a 30cm hole in the centre back seam to stuff the mannequin.

I sewed the body pieces together first, then added the neck, and finally the base. I didn’t worry about having the seam allowance showing at the base as I knew this was just a toile. You can also see that I made a bit of an error enlarging the base and had to put a little pleat in the back to take up the extra fabric. I made note of this when adjusting my pattern.

 

I stuffed my toile with foam chips as I picked up a bag of them on the last movie job I did, but you could also use batting. I do think that it is easier to get a smooth, non-lumpy finish with the foam chips, but they are very messy!

The toile came out a bit bigger than I had intended – far too big for my sample corsets to fit on – and I also wasn’t entirely happy with the way the shoulders came out. I decided to make a few changes to the pattern, which you can see in the next picture. I made the whole pattern narrower, rounded off the shoulders a bit and nipped the waist in.

I was reasonably confident that I would be happy with the new shape, so I went ahead and cut the pattern out of my final fabric and stitched it together. I used a sturdy upholstery fabric to help smooth over the slight bumpiness of the foam chips and cut cardboard discs for inside the neck and base which I slipped inside through the whole in the centre back. Then I got to work stuffing the mannequin, packing the foam chips as tightly as I could whilst not distorting the shape. Once I’d stuffed as much foam in as I could I sewed the back up by hand, adding more foam as I went to make sure the back was firm.

 

This is the finished mannequin. You can see she tilts a backwards at the waist – I think there is just not enough stuffing there to hold her properly upright. Once she is laced into a corset the lean is corrected, but it might be worth stuffing from higher up – between the shoulder blades – to avoid this. I like the shape through the waist and hips, but the wrinkling around the shoulders really irritates me!

 

I decided not to make stands for these as they stand nicely on a table, which was convenient for the event I made them for. In the work room they stand well on my bar stool. You could incorporate a stand fairly simply during the stuffing phase. My first choice would be to place an empty fabric roll (the cardboard rolls fabric comes on) down the centre of the mannequin and through a hole in the base, then simply slide the mannequin onto a base (See ‘stands’ section).

Here is a (slightly blurry) phone pic of the mannequins all dressed. You can see they are leaning a bit, and that the proportions look rather strange on the mannequin on the left. The corset is a mid-bust, which looks rather odd on the very long mannequin.

 

Given the short time these took to make I am happy with them, although I don’t think they will become a regular part of my display as there is still too much wrinkling at the shoulders and I would like to change the shape of the bust.

I’m currently planning to use one of these as a base to wrap in paper tape and then build onto the paper tape shell freehand to make the changes I want. The final form can then be painted and varnished, and I will be making myself a stand.

 

All in all, these work pretty well for display, although I think I can take them a lot further. These are also not bad for draping, but for that they will definitely need a stand so they are more secure. I have other ideas about making a good body cast for draping and fitting one’s own clothes, a bit of a hybrid of some of the methods that I’ve looked at in this article. I’ll be back with an article documenting my second wave of efforts sometime in the not too distant future.

 

 

 

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