Dress Form Comments

In college draping class we used paper mache dress forms, then made princess line fitting shells, fitted them tightly, put them on the form, and then stuffed the void between the fitting shell and the paper mache dress form to pad it. You can use any dress form that is smaller than you for your starting point for this method. (Garage sale or ebay, anyone?) This is an inexpensive dress form that you can pin and press on.

My dress form for years has been the above-described fitting shell put onto a Uniquely You dress form. This dress form is made of compressible foam, and you purchase a firm cloth fitting shell that you zip on. One of the advantages to this dress form is that you can change the size of it within a certain range by resewing the zip on garment. The foam shapes and cloth covers are sold based on your measurements. With PMB, you don't need to buy the cover and the shell you start with will be more true to your real shape.

Both the batting-padded dress forms and the Uniquely You have many advantages over the sticky and uncomfortable duct tape, plaster and kraft tape forms.

1. The only discomfort is temporarily wearing a skin tight shell--use PMB at no ease for a start.
2. You CAN PIN INTO and PRESS ON these surfaces. This is extremely useful when tailoring, draping, or pinning lace appliques to a bridal gown bodice. It is also a good place to put a garment in progress. As soon as I have the shoulder seams sewn I place the garment on the form, pinning various pieces in place.
3. You can change the size of this form within a certain range by resewing the zip on garment. (However, I must mention that the foam on mine has permanently compressed into the shape of my body about 20 years ago!)
4. We couched on fat string to mark the bust, waist and hips, which you can feel through garments you are working on.
5. This dress form is a heck of a lot more attractive than the wrapped forms, especially if you cover the neck and armholes. Put a casing and a drawstring at the bottom to snug it under the form.

How is the fit? If you and your helper do a good job fitting your shell, it is good enough. I personally have never done real FITTING on mine, but I use it a LOT for the tasks mentioned above. For real fitting, you have to try on to see how the garment feels and moves and sits...

Do a google on "dress forms" and "uniquely you" and see the interesting stuff that is out there.

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Sue--I received the Uniquely You for Christmas about 30 years ago, and had the college draping class a couple of years later. My instructor was kind enough to let me use my UY instead of purchasing the papermache form like the other students did.

The UY form is designed so that the foam is larger than the cover, and then the foam compresses to fill out the cover. Since college, it has had only the draping class cover on it, and later the navy calico cover which was cut from the college cover several years later. I think I threw away the UY cover a few years ago. By the way, I hand stitched the back, but a zipper is easier, especially if you have two people using the same form, which is possible with the regular zip-on UY cover.

Besides the public display reason, one of the main reasons I kept this form the same size as I was at 20-something is because for several years I sewed bridals, and I used the form extensively to pin lace on bodices. Since the form is about a size 12, I could get most sizes to lay on the form well enough for placing lace. (Small bodices gapped, large ones overlapped, no big deal.)

I agree with the gal who said that a dress form is not the perfect answer for fitting. Not only is it stiff, but it can't bend, sit, etc! It doesn't expand and shrink with breathing/eating/time of month. However, it is great for styling, shaping, pressing, and hanging garments in process or photographing final outfits. I've also dressed it as a headless creature a few times for Halloween!

The string through the eyelets, combined with horizontal darts from center front pointing toward the bust point, provides a pretty realistic bust separation. The string is embedded into the UY form. It doesn't pull the bust points toward center, because the cover was pin fitted to my body. I also have armhole darts in my form cover. Some gals had darts sewn in other places--whatever works to get the best fit!

One final comment: after being in the same cover for decades, the foam is permanently compressed, so if I wanted a UY form to match today's shape, I would need to buy a new base. However, I would probably use the form I have, sew a new cover, and wrap and stuff it like I suggested to Diane.