Desgining Heavy Wool Pants with a Tailored Look: Embracing Challenges in Pattern Drafting
My aim with this challenge was to use the heaviest wool fabric suitable for garment work, and design a pair of pants that would keep me toasty in the coldest temperatures of midwinter, allow plenty of movement, while maintaining a flatter, tailored profile on the front. I added the additional complication of using inseam gussets, adding another level of difficulty in achieving the tailored-look effect. And deciding halfway through construction that in-seam pockets were absolutely essential, introduced a nice bit of impromptu, mid-project drafting and head-scratching.
The fabric challenge was satisfied when I picked up an incredibly heavy, second-hand woven wool blanket from a military surplus store. 4 pounds of pure wool in a 5 foot by 7 foot blanket meant that this fabric was even heavier than my husband’s heaviest full length wool coat made in exquisite Italian woven wool. I had simply never designed a garment for such a hefty fabric. And it was the jvery heavy weight of the wool fabric that turned this lesson in pants drafting into the satisfying journey of accelerated learning and understanding I went through in creating this garment.
When it comes to pattern drafting in general, but pants in particular, everything becomes more complicated as the weight of the fabric increases. From style lines, to darts, to balancing out seams, all the variables that have to be ironed out in the drafting stage require more work, more correction and re-correction in heavier fabrics, than when working with the more forgiving qualities of lightweight stuffs. If anything, a heavyweight wool will often accentuate imbalances in the draft, which is why I spent more time in the flat pattern stage of this garment than even some jackets I’ve built from scratch. It was the perfect challenge for accelerating my learning and understanding of drafting trousers.
Of all the challenges, however, drafting the inseam gussets were the most time consuming and the most rewarding.
Gussets have all but disappeared from modern clothing design, aided no doubt by both changes in fashion but also the introduction of stretch in factory woven fabrics, and the very sedentary lifestyles led by the modern wearer compared to our ancestors even a hundred years ago; the need for our clothes to allow a greater range of motion and movement has simply been made redundant by the modernising of our way of life.
But I needed a pair of pants that would allow for all the wide variety of movement by mothering body goes through from dawn to dusk; from deep squats, at the level of my youngest baby, to surya namaskars throughout the day, and all the hefting and hauling and climbing and jumping over trees and bushes while out and about in out forest home, my legs are in constant asepcts of motion, far more than in poses of sedentariness, on any given day. So, I spent more time on refining the gussets of the pants draft than on any other part of the design. Time that was well spent as I’ve been rewarded with a pair of pants where the gussets, instead of adding too much bulk and detracting from the tailored look, have actually created some strong, sleek style lines that suit the overall look of the garment. I know that I won’t hesitate in adding gussets to future pants designs for the atelier, even if not in such heavy fabrics, because of the wonderful benefit of added comfort and movement they offer.
