Be bold, it is easier to simplify than to magnify.
-- Geneviève Sevin-Doering
As a then fashion design student and now fashion design practitioner, I am from time to time amazed by how difficult a garment creation appears yet how simple the patterns are to construct it. This of course is not always true. There are garments consisting tens of pattern pieces, hundreds of notches, and probably over 10 pages of sewing guide of how to construct the piece. I, however, have always believed that difficulty should always be embedded in the simplicity and simplicity is always sought in the difficulty. All the beautiful things seem to possess such quality from nature, to art, and to mathematics. As a matter of fact, simplify and elegance has always been two criteria to judge a PhD dissertation in Mathematics. Beautiful things are more likely to be true as tested time and time again. The ultimate goal of methods and techniques should be to do without them. Previously trained in economics, a subject built around scarce resources and how to economize them in a society, I always find that those fashion designs stunning to my eyes are always those with most efficient, innovative, and interesting patterns technique. As those wise words said by Ms. Geneviève Sevin-Doering, a French costume designer:
“Not having the method is bad. Remain entirely imprisoned by the method is even worse. One needs to first follow a strict rule; then one needs to intelligently explore all its possible variations, the aim of any method is to do without it. But if one wants to go beyond the method, certainly one must first have it; if one wants simplicity, it must be sought in the difficulty.”
As an example, I present a beautiful, kimono-inspired jacket by Alexander Lee McQueen from his Fall/Winter 2003 women's ready-to-wear fashion collection. Mixing oriental tradition and McQueen's hallmark razor tailoring, this is a succinct summary of his design genius. The sharp tailoring, for which this label is famous for, is seen in the jacket’s strong linear construction and carefully layered fabric sections. A collision of Western Victoriana and Eastern traditional dress, this garment, like so much of McQueen’s work, references historical detailing while remaining quintessentially modern. This jacket consists of only 7 patterns pieces. SHOWstudio.com presented the downloadable garment including an aerial view of the pattern pieces as well as the printing and sewing construction help. I have made it available below for you to download and try to construct the design yourself.
- McQueen Kimono Jacket Pattern Overview - click here to download
- Download download sheet 1 - click here to download
- Download download sheet 2 - click here to download
- Pattern help - click here to download
- Pattern sewing instructions - click here to download
- Printing help - click here to download
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