Introduction

Missed Fit has been a journey, one with many tangents and false starts, an academic continuation to a career-long question on how to find good fit. I started my research with one question: has the human form in Western civilizations changed physically over the last two hundred years? Certainly, lifestyles and occupations have changed. In Western culture, there has been a trend towards a more sedentary workplace and home life, but has that affected the shape and proportions of the human form and how Western culture perceives the concept of fit? I thought that the issues I faced as a custom tailor in finding the resources I needed to fit individuals reflected a need to update quantitative data on the human body. I found early in my research that it was my reliance on this quantitative data that caused the problem in the first place. These early questions are explored in the sections Issues with mobility and How do you find fit?

I looked to historical tailoring texts from Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, and France for insights into our past ideas on finding fit and, in them, I found historical records and theses on anthropometry, or the geometry of the human form. Anthropometry is defined in the Gage Canadian Dictionary (Avis 1983) as “the branch of anthropology that deals with measurements of the human body” (48). Anthropometric data is often published for use in various design fields including tailoring, industrial design, and architecture. This is a practice-based and qualitative research project that challenges the use of quantitative data on the human body, as it is applied in fields where this body is considered. 

The goal of this research is to expand the ways practitioners in fashion consider what is deemed to be good fit. What I have learned from my study of historical tailoring texts and through apprenticeship is that, traditionally, tailors define good fit as a garment that hangs in a balanced way off the shoulders and sits on the body without excessive folds or creases while the wearer is in a comfortable standing position. As a researcher, I learned that good fit is determined by the wearer and is different for every individual. 

The creative body of works I have produced as part of this research explore the written theories that I have found in my search for good fit, demonstrate that mechanical fit influences psychological fit, and that there are tools that can be developed to produce diverse approaches to fitting the body. The creative work challenges conventional attitudes to fit. Some other examples of this challenging of conventional attitudes to fit can be seen in the works of Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo for the brand Comme des Garçons (Bolton 2017), in the past creations by Belgian designer Martin Margiela for his Paris-based brand Maison Margiela (Samson 2018), and in the designs of American fashion designer Thom Browne. Missed Fit, the exhibition of my creative work, forms the body of this research. A key part of my methodology is the exploration of fit form a variety of perspectives as well as being open to new concepts of fit as they opened up during my research process. Many of the initial findings from the literature review can and should be explored further by other makers. These findings have been included as they help to form a full picture of the complicated experience of getting dressed. This article first journeys into fit from a wide range of theories and fields using a variety of research methods, and concludes in the making and exhibition of works that advance knowledge in these areas.

A Fit, Fit

Every experience I have had of pleasure and excitement about a world opening up has begun with the ordinary feelings of discomfort; of not quite fitting in a chair, of becoming unseated, of being left holding onto the ground. So yes, if we start with the body that loses its chair, the world we describe will be quite different. (Ahmed 2006, 154)

Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology (2006) gives me the perfect platform to queer our experiences of getting dressed, to quite literally bend the lines or seams in a garment. Through this paradigm, I explore how we experience dress, the differences in the experience for each individual, how we interpret dress, and why a new approach to defining good fit is important. I have explored two concepts of fit in this research: mechanical fit, such as when two parts are required to fit together to drive a machine, and fitting in, or how we measure and compare ourselves against one another. 

Mechanical fit is specific and inherently provides for the right amount of looseness. The amount of ease or looseness required in the fit of a garment, however, is always up for debate. One individual with a jacket that cannot be buttoned closed may complain that it is too loose, and tell their tailor that it needs to be taken in. Another individual may complain that a very boxy jacket is too tight, and needs to be let out. As a tailor and clothing designer for almost two decades, I have made the crafting of garments that fit perfectly my primary goal, studying anthropometric data in a desperate search for a good standard and working tirelessly to flawlessly clothe individual bodies. I have witnessed first-hand the positive effects this can have on a person. Through my craft, I have had the opportunity to help clients heal from the pain of a physical injury or health issue.

In his book The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan (2002) likens the human species to apple trees using the term heterozygosity (10). He writes of the extreme genetic variability of apple trees. If you take the seeds from a single apple and plant them, the trees that grow from those seeds will not resemble the tree the seeds were taken from, nor will they resemble each other (Pollan 10-11). Of course, every tree grows a bit differently, but with apples each of the new trees allowed to grow will have different bark, different leaf shapes, different fruit of different colours, sizes, and taste from the original, a much more extreme variability than is seen in other species (Pollan 1-58). The human species is also heterozygosit. The tallest verified medically recorded man was 8-feet, 11.1-inches tall (“Tallest Man” 2019), while the smallest adult man verified and recorded is 21.5-inches tall (“Shortest Man” 2019). How these two individuals experience fit is going to be vastly different.

Sara Ahmed (2006) describes the experience of not fitting into a chair (154) and I relate this to how an individual experiences the fit of clothing. Ahmed writes of how we inhabit space and objects, arguing that by repetitive inhabitation and use of a space by a particular group of people it becomes a comfortable lived space (134). What do we usually describe as “good fit”? I think Ahmed would describe this term as objects or spaces that extend our reach without thought, items and spaces that become normalized, or made a part of our everyday lives. My experimenting with fit has taken me out of my normalized space, and I have done so to open myself up to new opportunities. 

Jacques Derrida’s Différance (1982) provides me with an action, a chance to challenge structuralism and binary oppositions. As Flavia Loscialpo outlines in Fashion and Philosophical Deconstruction: A Fashion In-Deconstruction (2011), Derrida’s text highlights the idea that language is not a whole, that it has more than one interpretation, and often many conflicting interpretations (9). I apply this action of deconstruction to the signification of fashion and dress. Différance provides a theoretical framework that allows me to clearly highlight that the fit of a garment is a very personal phenomenon. Fit is experienced and perceived differently by everyone (Derrida 1982, 1-27). When relating this back to Ahmed’s theory, not everyone’s experience of not fitting in a chair will be the same. In my crossing of disciplines, you even find places where the same language needs to be re-defined depending on which discipline it has been applied to. Drafting a pattern in tailoring, for example, can be described as the process of finding a flat shape that can be used to create a three-dimensional piece of clothing. In weaving, drafting describes the planning of a weave structure, a binary code that when followed produces a woven pattern. You can see how language is easily misinterpreted and in need of definition. Dress, or the way one adorns oneself with clothing, complicates semiotics even further as it, too, crosses disciplines. Dress is not without meaning, but defining that meaning proves challenging, and the complex interpretation of dress, has an effect on the experience of getting dressed.

Roland Barthes’ The Language of Fashion (2017) opens up a dialogue, questioning what an article of dress means. Barthes contemplates what the small details such as buttons signify independently versus in combination with other materials (27). Barthes concludes that it is not a single element that gives dress its meaning, but rather the culmination of details. The meaning of these small details is explored in my creative works in the section Weaving. Elizabeth Wilson’s Adorned in Dreams (2003) takes Barthes’ theories further. Wilson argues that the wearer of clothing imparts the meaning behind the garments. In Wilson’s text, she explores the struggle of studying dress. Wilson identifies that dress challenges the boundaries of the self: do we end where our bodies end? Do tattoos and other permanent adornments to the body become part of the self and, if so, does this include temporary adornment such as clothing (2)? The experiences of dress as an extension of the self is discovered and explored in the works Dome Shirt (Figure 16) and Photographs of A Suit Made Not to Fit (Figure 19).

 The Suit (2016) by Christopher Breward outlines histories of the suit, the methodology and meanings in its making, and its past and current contexts. Throughout this text, Breward traces the history of how this uniform has been used to spark political and social change and its value as a signifier and carrier of different messages, reinforcing my choice of the suit as a vehicle to explore identity and challenge conservative notions of fitting in.

 These texts speak to the experience and the meaning of dress, or how we wear clothing. I’m using them to highlight the nuanced way dress is interpreted by the wearer and by others observing that individual. An issue of mechanical fit in clothing can have an impact on the wearer’s ability to feel at ease. I’m applying these theories to my practice-based research to explore new principles in fit.

The Grey Flannel Suit

My approach examines and experiments with the methodology of patternmaking in tailoring. The pattern can also be referred to as the cut of a garment. The technical fit of a garment has mostly to do with what flat shape has been cut before it has been pieced together. My research looks to historical and contemporary methods of cutting, along with principles or adaptations for issues with fit and challenges, exaggerates, and breaks the rules of garment cutting. Julian Roberts’ work Subtraction Cutting (2008) is a patternmaking text that explores experimental cutting for clothing. He describes an approach that relates to the method I have taken:

Fabric is not like wood, concrete or cardboard, and designing in cloth requires a fluid way of thinking that isn’t stiffened or restrained by inflexible rules and traditions. When you explore new techniques and methods of making, you deal with chance, luck and hope (15). 

 Roberts’ writing and work focuses on the idea of designing patterns, rather than creating patterns for designs, a cause and effect way of working that leads to new designs that could not have been conceptualized the other way around.

Research Creation is well described in Chapman and Sawchucks’ article Research-Creation: Intervention, Analysis and “Family Resemblances” (2012): 

Research-creation “theses” or projects typically integrate a creative process, experimental aesthetic component, or an artistic work as an integral part of the study. Topics are selected and investigated that could not be addressed without engaging in some form of creative practice, such as the production of a video, performance, film, sound work, blog or multimedia text. (6)

In my case I have used the cut, development, and construction of a garment as a creative process to explore my questions around fit.

 Grounded theory is a method of discovery, much like Roberts’ approach. I have used grounded theory as illustrated by Melanie Birks and Jane Mills in Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide (2015) as a loose way of organizing this research (4). Grounded theory requires an immersion in methods, methodology, and theory, allowing new theory to emerge. When using grounded theory, the research questions evolve, and each new discovery directs the research forward. Auto-ethnography has put me in the clothing I have made, to first hand put theory to the test of practice as described. Brent Luvaas in his chapter Urban Fieldnotes: An Auto-Ethnography of Street Style Blogging (2016) writes: “…auto-ethnography is a powerful tool, grounding insights gleaned from elsewhere within the lived realities of everyday experience. It subjects theory to the test of practice” (98). This has allowed me to build on the theories outlined in my literature review and add a sensory experience and a perspective of someone not just immersed in the practice of making fashion to the field of fashion studies, but also from the experience of the wearer.

Appropriating the suit and taking it out of its usual context brings into question its usually held meanings. Jan Verwoert writes in his article Apropos Appropriation (2007) that appropriate appropriation is about “performing the unresolved,” bringing into question the untold (6). He describes appropriation as a way of evoking ghosts (Verwoert 6). The suit as a symbol of uniformity and conservatism is a way of conforming to Western ideals, a way of fitting in. It is this meaning associated with the grey flannel suit that I hope to appropriate and decontextualize.

 Sloan Wilson’s 1955 novel The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit explores the associations we have with this from of dress. The story follows an ex-military man, Tom Rath, trying to fit back into regular life in New York’s upper working class. Tom is unable to shake his time spent in war, and cannot re-assimilate into his past life. The title of the book is a metaphor for his struggles to fit in. Similarly, American fashion designer Thom Browne’s work can serve as a case study with regard to how I have appropriated the grey flannel suit. Browne pushes the boundaries of this type of garment, almost exclusively, collection after collection, successfully evoking ghosts of tradition, conservatism, uniformity, masculinity, and an attempt at fitting in. Browne does this by presenting experimental and non-conformational pieces that still resemble a grey flannel suit.

Issues with Mobility: An Anatomical Study

My earlier quantitative questions around changes to Western bodies over time led me to a study of anatomy. How can I describe my understanding of good fit for dress, without a clear understanding of the human body? This section highlights the fluidity of the human body, and focuses not just on the body and its parts, but how the body moves. In this section I explore how the body impacts dress and how mobility in dress plays a role in our experience of dress.  

Clarence Poulin writes in his text, Tailoring Suits: The Professional Way on What is Good Tailoring (1952):

A good coat has straight seams and straight collar edges all over. There are no crooks or puckers. The front edge is smooth, and not stretched at any point… The sleeves hang clean with no diagonal fluting. The collar sits close around the neck but is neither tight nor loose. (15-16) 

In order to find what Poulin writes, I start with an observation of the body. I would like to note that finding a natural or comfortable position is difficult. Part of my job is to distract an individual I’m hoping to fit, move them away from the mirror, and trick them, if you will. Any notes taken on an individual’s posture while they face themselves in the mirror will be incorrect. (When I get dressed in the morning and face myself in the mirror, I’m aware that I suck in my belly and puff out my chest, so I’m conscious of how paying close attention to one’s own posture and proportions can alter the body’s shape.) A suit made up with observations taken in this setting will inevitably come back to me for alterations. 

 It has helped me to start with a description of the frame of the human body using the anatomical terms from Elaine N. Marieb, Patricia Bradley Wilhelm, and Jon Mallat’s book Human Anatomy (2011). The human skeleton is described as having two regions. The axial skeleton (Marieb et al. 145-181) is the vertebral column (backbone) along with the skull and ribcage. In humans, the vertebral column has a gentle S-shape when upright, with curves in the neck and low back areas that are concave in an opposite way to the curves in the ribcage and sacral areas. The other region is called the appendicular skeleton (Marieb et al. 182-205), consisting of the upper and lower extremities. The upper extremity includes the bones of the arm along with the scapula and clavicle, and the lower extremity includes the bones of the leg along with the pelvis (Figure 1). 

Figure 1

This illustration shows a human skeleton seated, highlighting a position that a tailor also must consider when fitting a suit on an individual. Francesco Bertinatti. Skeleton. 1837-39. National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland. In Human Anatomy: Depicting the Body from the Renaissance to Today. Thames & Hudson, 2011. Cover.

 Why does a change in posture or gesture matter to a tailor? As noted, in an upright position, there is a soft “S” shape, but when seated one’s position is more of a “C” shape. This changes the balance, or distribution, of cloth over the body significantly. When setting out to make a suit for an individual I must also consider the occupation of the individual and the occasion during which the garment will be worn. My study in anatomy did not lead me to any answers on mechanical fit, instead these issues with mobility further complicate the idea of good fit. While anthropometry is published as static data, the human body is not static. Its measurements change with the movement of the body. Not only is every individual’s idea of fit going to be different, but the measurements we use to establish fit are always in changing. This ease of movement is challenged in creative pieces I made: Abduction and Upside Down are further described in the section How do you experience fit?

Missed Fit: Research Creation

In my exhibition Missed Fit, I aimed to distort the experience of getting dressed by exploring exaggerated principles of fit in garments. The results, expressed through elements that investigated the process of designing clothing, how garments are made, and the feeling of wearing them, questioned one’s sense of fitting in.

The creation and exhibition of works for Missed Fit reinforced the concept that mechanical fit influences psychological fit, and that there are tools that can be developed to produce diverse approaches to fitting garments that don’t rely exclusively on anthropometric data. The exhibition was divided into four sections, each introduced by a question.

Part One: How Do You Find Fit? 

Figure 2

“Il Tagliapanni” is more properly translated from Italian to English as “the cutter.” In tailoring, the role of the cutter is to interpret the pattern and cut the cloth for an individual. A tailor assembles the cut pieces. The work in Missed Fit started with an exploration in cutting. Giovanni Battista Moroni. The Tailor (Il Tagliapanni). Painting. 1565-1570. The National Gallery, London. 

The first element is a collection of research materials, process work, and tailored garments made purposely not to fit that question the idea of fitting in through dress (Figure 2). I started my research looking for a system of drafting that might accommodate all body types, going back to some of the earliest known texts on tailoring, and found only instruction on how to make the most economical use in the layout of a pattern on fabric and some basic instructions on types of stitches that are used to assemble a piece (Figure 3, Figure 4, and Figure 5). 

 In the hopes of finding some lost system from the beginnings of the tailoring trade, I explored Wampen’s Anthropometry (1864), one of the earliest texts to theorize how garments could be made into sizes that would work for the general population. Wampen’s text consists of a set of mathematical equations that are meant to address the more complex differences in proportions of an individual (Figure 6).

 The search for resources yielded many results, especially throughout the nineteenth century. Many early books on pattern drafting, including Wampen’s text, make claims that the art of cutting is scientific and that a skilled craftsman should also be a mathematician and be able to use mathematical formulas to find the right answers without the need for a fitting (Wampen Part Third 1864, 9). It is theories like Wampen’s that have been proven wrong in my professional experience, and challenged my sense of mastery of my profession. In other texts, I found concepts that helped to expand my new understanding of fit. The Art of Trying-On or Fitting cautions that even if a cutter’s skills are at this level, their interpretation of good fit for an individual may not be what the individual interprets as good fit (Shaw). In Shaw’s text I found language that I find more preferable as a tailor: a “try-on” as opposed to a “fitting”. I prefer a “try-on” as the term doesn’t assume a right and wrong answer as a “fitting” might.

 J. King Wilson’s (1948) book, The Art of Cutting and Fitting, is a mid-twentieth century text and a landmark study in finding good fit (Figure 7). Wilson’s text is not about drafting, but adapting a pattern, or adjusting a draft to accommodate an individual. A pattern in tailoring and clothing construction refers to a paper template that is used to cut cloth in the construction of garments. The pattern controls the final shape and size or fit of a garment. Patternmaking in tailoring and clothing construction is a system for adapting previously developed patterns for fit or style. Pattern drafting in tailoring is the creation of a new patterns from scratch, usually from a mathematical formula. 

 Throughout the text, Wilson breaks down the art of fitting into a series of independent patternmaking moves that address one issue with fit at a time. Earlier texts, such as The Art of Trying-On or Fitting, worked with the premise of tailored clothing being made from moldable and thicker woolen cloths that could be easily stretched and formed with an iron (Shaw). These techniques dealt with several issues of fit in one movement of cloth. Mid-twentieth century spinning and weaving processes produced cloths that don’t allow for this type of manipulation. J. King Wilson’s (1948) text gave me a starting point to explore fit. I was able to look at each one of Wilson’s isolated movements and apply a variety of extreme exaggerations in the right or wrong direction. I produced a series of twenty experimental jackets in muslin. Pattern Piece for A Study in Vertical Balance – Passing up the Back (Figure 8) is a framed pattern piece shown in a state of manipulation and presented as a piece of art to be contemplated. A Study in Vertical Balance – Passing up the Back (Figure 9) is the three-dimensional results of this flat piece. 

Figure 7

J. Wilson is the first to break down the art of fitting into adjustments that address a single difference on the body. Previous texts use complex movements that address two or three aspects of the body at one time. Theodore B. F. Ruoff. Major Vertical Balance Too Long, Major Vertical Balance Too Short. Cartoon. In The Art of Cutting and Fitting: A Practical Manual, by J. King Wilson. London: Crosby Lockwood & Son, 1948. 30-31. 

Figure 10

This is an example of anthropometric data, a chart of proportions used in the drafting of a pattern. If the proportions listed in a patternmaking text are not followed, the formula will not work, like trying to find the diameter of a circle without using Pi. A pattern will still be adjusted to an individual using principles of fit. Frank C. Doblin. New Standard Chart of Proportions. Chart. In The New Mitchell System of Men's Designing. By Frank C. Doblin. New York: American-Mitchell Fashion Publishers, 1951. 16.

Figure 11

Eversmart. “Eversmart: Exclusivite Des Galleries Lafayette.” Pamphlet. n.d.

Figure 13

Jacket #21, a finished piece, is an exaggeration of an exaggeration in vertical balance.

Philip Sparks. A Study in Vertical Balance- Jacket #21. In The Globe and Mail. September 27, 2018. Accessed February 18, 2019. Photo: Shalan and Paul https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/style/article-think-suits-are-stuffy-these-eight-looks-for-fall-prove-otherwise/. 

Figure 15

Inspired by Brunelleschi’s interpretation of Vitruvian writings in the dome of the sacristy in Basilica San Lorenzo, a pattern for a shirt uses the same Vitruvian proportions. Brunelleschi designed the sacristy and its dome referencing a section in De Architectura (The Ten Books on Architecture) called “On Symmetry: In Temples and in the Human Body,” the same writings that inspired da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Philip Sparks. Missed Fit (Installation Shot- 2104 Dundas Street West) Pattern for a Dome Shirt. 2019. Toronto. Photo: Kristy Boyce.

Figure 17

Da Vinci’s (1490) illustration the Vitruvian Man is still used today as a symbol for the idealized surface anatomy of a man. Etched into clear acrylic, the figure presented here is scaled to a height of six feet. In The Ten Books on Architecture, Vitruvius (1960) writes, “…as the foot is one sixth of a man’s height, the height of the body as expressed in the number of feet being limited to six, they held that this was the perfect number” (74). Philip Sparks. Missed Fit (Installation Shot- 2104 Dundas Street West). A Reflection on the Vitruvian Man. 2019. Toronto. Photo: Kristy Boyce.

Figure 19

The wearer imparts meaning to clothing. These images, created in collaboration with photographer Carlyle Routh and makeup artist/hair stylist Robert Weir, highlight the struggle of trying to move the body to fit in to a full ensemble that was made not to fit. Philip Sparks, Carlyle Routh, and Robert Weir. Photographs of A Suit Made Not to Fit. 2019. Toronto.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dorie Millerson, Dr. Stephen Tulk, Andrew Sardone, OCAD University and The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada whose support made this research possible.

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