The Elusive Plus Sized Dress Form

 

After having my sewing machine in storage for over 20 years, I took it off the shelf to help my son with some alterations for his cosplay outfit. That experience sparked in me the desire to sew on a regular basis. So I have finally started back sewing and it has been a lot of fun. It's very therapeutic, and time just melts away when I am in my lil creative world accompanied by the buzz of my sewing machine. 

I have been emersed in making masks, sewing by pattern, and even did a few freestyle designs from my own invention. I even updated my sewing machine and bought mannequins to show off the styles I have created. One thing I did was purchase a mannequin of size so I can start creating fashions that I can personally wear. I started off when a dress form that appeared to be a size 10-12 but that is still kinda small compared to the size dress form that I need. 

So I went online in search of an affordable dress form. The ones that were considered "plus-size" weren't, and the ones that were, were either out of stock or out of production. The one I finally found and ordered, was quickly refunded and taken down off the website. So I kept searching. I never found one that was right. The hard-shelled dress forms aren't what I needed, and the ones I needed don't exist. 

Until...

Brandon Wen and Laura Zwanziger, a pair of sophomores studying apparel design at Cornell University, looked around at the fashion world and noticed a gaping need: better apparel for plus-size people.  The duo decided to create their own plus-size clothing collection but ran into difficulties when it came time to find realistic dress forms. Full-figured mannequins ran scarce in the real world, and the ones that did exist were far from proportional.

In the spirit of innovation, they teamed up with Professor Susan Ashdown, analyzed thousands of 3-D body scans of women, and finally created a prototype and pattern for a “pear-shaped, size-24 woman.” Zwanziger told the Cornell Chronicle, “A lot of the clothes [for plus-size women] are really just sized up from smaller proportions, which fit really strangely … Issues of health aside, we’re all different body shapes and body proportions. Each person deserves to have clothing designed for them as they are, not as they relate to some abstract industry shape.” Amen. 

(Source: The Cut)

I will be waiting with bated breath for these to hit the market. Hopefully, they aren't $5k or more.