Hi everyone,

I’ve read and studied nearly all the pattern drafting books out there, and I recently got my hands on Guido Hofenbitzer’s Patternmaking for Fashion 1. The actual content and drafting information in this book is amazing—like, by far the best I have ever seen.

However, there is a massive catch.

It was originally written in German, and the English translation is so poorly done. It reads like they just dumped the text into Google Translate and called it a day. It makes an already technical subject incredibly difficult to follow.

To make matters worse, he has at least one other book out in his patternmaking series (on fit and customization, I believe), but it's only available in German and it seems like there are no plans to translate it. Because the English version of volume one is so hard to get your hands on, there is practically zero information about it online. You can't really find examples of garments created from his drafts, discussions about issues encountered, or workarounds for the confusing translation.

I know Hofenbitzer gets brought up in this subreddit quite a bit, so I wanted to ask: Would anyone be interested in forming a group study or a "support group" for his content?

We could work through the drafts together, share our results, and troubleshoot the weirdly translated steps. Most importantly, if there is anyone here who speaks German and would be willing to help clarify what the English translation is actually trying to say by cross-referencing the original text, you would be an absolute hero.

Let me know if you'd be interested in setting up a Discord or a group chat to tackle this together!

Hi everyone!

I’m looking to dive deeper into custom bra drafting, but I keep running into the same roadblock: almost every popular flat-patterning method I find (like Bare Essentials) relies heavily on tracing an underwire and building the cradle and cups out from that specific wire spring/curve.

I want to learn how to accurately draft a highly supportive, well-fitting cup based purely on body measurements and geometry, without the underwire dictating the foundation of the draft. Whether the final garment ends up being a wireless/soft-cup bra, or a wired bra where the wire is fitted to the drafted pattern (rather than the pattern drafted to the wire), I want to understand the pure spatial geometry of the breast.

Does anyone have recommendations for methods, books, or resources that teach this?

Specifically, I’d love to hear your thoughts on Measurement-based flat patterning. Are there any authors or systems that teach cup drafting purely from radius, cross-cup, and bottom-cup measurements or any other body measurements?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking into drafting a true zero-ease skin sloper, and Kenneth D. King’s The Moulage (the couture drafting system rooted in the ESMOD lineage) keeps coming up as a highly recommended method.

I know he sells a 130-page PDF book/CD version online, and sometimes teaches classes through venues like the Sewing and Design School or PatternReview. However, his personal website looks incredibly old-school (the kind where you email him or use a direct PayPal link to buy the PDFs), and I haven't been able to find many recent, detailed reviews of the drafting process online.

Because of the old website and the lack of recent feedback, I'm a bit hesitant to pull the trigger. If you have used his moulage method or taken his course, I’d love to hear about your experience:

• How did the final moulage fit? Did it genuinely fit like a second skin right off the paper, or did it require a ton of intensive pin-fitting adjustments afterward?
• How are the instructions? Is it a highly math-heavy/fraction-heavy calculation sheet? Are the instructions clear enough to follow on your own if you buy just the PDF, or do you really need the live class context to understand the why behind the steps?
• Did you need a fitting partner? Since it requires precise, discrete body measurements, were you able to manage them solo or is a second person mandatory?
• Is it worth the purchase? Especially if you've tried other sloper/block drafting methods (like Suzy Furrer's or standard commercial textbook methods), how does Kenneth's hold up?

Would love to hear any thoughts, warnings, or success stories. Thank you!

Body:

Hey everyone, I’m having a bit of a theoretical crisis regarding how horizontal level lines (like the bust line, underbust, and waist) behave when we flatten them out on a table, especially for figures with a lot of front projection—like a very large bust or a pregnant belly.

I’m trying to wrap my head around the pure spatial math of how a 3D body unfolds into a 2D piece of paper, and I keep hitting a paradox.

The Paradox:

1. At the Side Seam: The side seam sits in a relatively neutral zone on the body. The vertical distance from the waist to the underbust, and underbust to the bust line, is pretty much identical on both the front and back halves of the body. Because of this, the physical length of the front and back side seams must match perfectly so they can be sewn together smoothly.
2. At Center Front vs. Center Back: Because a bust or a belly projects forward, the vertical surface distance going over that front apex is significantly longer than the flat distance running down the spine. The front panel needs more actual fabric area in the center to cover that 3D curve without pulling.

If the front panel has to be physically longer in the middle than the back panel, but they have to be the exact same length at the side seam, what happens to those horizontal level lines when the pattern is flat on the table with the darts wide open?

Think about draping a grid-marked muslin on a heavily contoured dress form. On the 3D body, those horizontal lines look perfectly parallel and level to the floor.

But when you unpin that muslin, open up the darts, and lay it completely flat on a cutting table:

1. Do those level lines actually bend, hinge, or break at the apex?
2. If they do bend, does that mean true, mathematically accurate flat drafting requires our level lines to be tilted or broken while the darts are open?
3. How do you conceptualize this spatial distortion when drafting from scratch, without just relying on arbitrary manual hacks (like "add an extra 2cm to the center front hem and blend it out")?

I’m really curious to hear from anyone who has wrestled with the deeper 3D-to-2D transformation of fitting contoured shapes. How do you visualize what's actually happening to the geometry of the fabric here?

Hey everyone,

I’m struggling to find a solid workflow for extracting highly specific, absolute data from an avatar. There is an endless amount of info out there on how to edit an avatar’s measurements to match a real person, but almost nothing on how to systematically pull complex measurements off an existing 3D form.

Specifically, I’m trying to establish clean baselines for drafting, and the default auto-measurements aren't cutting it. I need to find precise ways to measure the following:

• Shoulder Length: Specifically, the exact line where a traditional shoulder seam would sit (from the base of the neck to the acromion/shoulder point).
• Arm Depth and Width: The exact discrete dimensions of the arm/armscye area rather than just a total muscle circumference.
• Front and Back Arc Measurements: CLO has great circumference tools, but I need partial arcs (e.g., center front to side seam, or side seam to side seam across the back).

Bonus question on side seams: How do you actually establish a mathematically true side seam on an avatar to measure between? Is there a way to project a straight line down the side of the avatar from the halfway point of the arm's bounding box (width/depth), and use that as a consistent landmark to measure front and back arcs?

If anyone has a reliable methodology, specific tools (Surface Tape, Linear Measures, etc.), or a workaround for exporting this kind of precise topographic data, I would love to hear how you handle it!

Thanks in advance!

I'm also reading Hofenbitzer's vol.1. He said that plus sizes will be addressed in his second volume which is only available in German as of now. I'm honestly considering purchasing it and using google translate. I'm wondering if anyone here knows anything about it. What are the differences between his drafting systems for standard sizes vs plus sizes? What happens if you use his standard size instructions to draft for a plus size bodice?