Costume Design > Patterning > 60’s Shift Dress

Project Overview

For this assignment, I was tasked with interpreting a provided rendering and creating a pattern for a 1960s-style dress using an assigned commercial pattern. I could drape, draft, or combine both methods, and I approached it the way I would in a real costume shop by treating the sketch as if it came directly from a designer.

Using the artwork on the pattern envelope and the line drawings on the back, I created a fully finished pattern without seam allowance on brown craft paper. I then built a complete muslin mockup with seam allowance. This project was part of a multi-week patterning sequence and overlapped with my final project, so strong time management was very important.

The goal was to take the designer’s sketch and turn it into a mockup that was ready to be fit on an actor, just as it would be in a professional production process.