Trouser Fitting

[napwalk]

Hello all, hope you're doing well! Started drafting 2 new pairs of pants, one traditional pair of trousers and one pair of slimmer trousers I will be turning into a pair of jeans. I've adapted them from Poulin's 1950 trouser draft and applied the fixes described in Wir Aedern (CB moved out 2 cm and down 1 cm, side seam moved in 2 cm) for resolving horseshoe folds under the seat. The trousers fit fine and pass the sitting/stairs/kneeling test for comfort, however, there is still some bubbling/buckling on the rearpart. Perhaps this is a result of the toile fabric being stretched in the rear as I did sit/stand a lot to make sure they fit? If this is the case, how would I account for this distortion when I cut the pattern in my final fabric as denim stretches so much over time? Please give me your thoughts and critiques, thank you.

Trouser 1






Trouser 2 (Slimmed)

[Gerry]

Seen from the rear, the photos towards the end of your thread look more normal than those at the beginning, which look very strange. They're like different trousers, and that makes it hard to give advice. Which set of photos more accurately reflects the fit, and why are they different? (or is it a trick of the light?).

With the earlier snaps, it's almost like the CB is going out at an angle then coming back inwards. Possibly something to do with your alteration? (which I'm not familiar with).

[napwalk]

Seen from the rear, the photos towards the end of your thread look more normal than those at the beginning, which look very strange. They're like different trousers, and that makes it hard to give advice. Which set of photos more accurately reflects the fit, and why are they different? (or is it a trick of the light?).

With the earlier snaps, it's almost like the CB is going out at an angle then coming back inwards. Possibly something to do with your alteration? (which I'm not familiar with).

Apologies, messy formatting on my part. There are indeed two pairs, both with an alteration to straighten the seat angle. However, the second set (trouser 2) has also been slimmed in the crotch and thigh with Aldrich's method.

Wir Aendern Alteration:
from https://movsd.com/BespokeCutter/index.php/topic,694.msg5925.html#msg5925


Aldrich Alteration (Solid Line is After):


F-G is 1.5cm (9/16"), I-J is 1cm (3/8"), slimming at knee lines A-B and C-D are arbitrary.

Final Patterns:

The solid line is the original draft from Poulin, the black dashed line is the Wir Aedern alteration, and the red dashed line is the Aldrich alteration.

Hope this clarifies

[Gerry]

With trouser draft No 1, you've created something akin to a box-pleat along the CB seam at the base of the seat. Excess cloth that has nowhere to go, other than to fold-in around the CB. Looking at your sketch of the final draft, the CB line resembles a jeans cut. Without the typical scoop found on most dress-trouser drafts, you're creating excess cloth in that area. That would be my guess as to why you have the box-pleat.

I'm assuming that the crotch width was narrowed in draft 2? That plus less ease has cleaned up the problem, but it's not the way to go for the dress trousers IMO.

[napwalk]

With trouser draft No 1, you've created something akin to a box-pleat along the CB seam at the base of the seat. Excess cloth that has nowhere to go, other than to fold-in around the CB. Looking at your sketch of the final draft, the CB line resembles a jeans cut. Without the typical scoop found on most dress-trouser drafts, you're creating excess cloth in that area. That would be my guess as to why you have the box-pleat.

I'm assuming that the crotch width was narrowed in draft 2? That plus less ease has cleaned up the problem, but it's not the way to go for the dress trousers IMO.

Thanks for your insight. I've re-sewn the toile with a deeper CB curve and it seems to have remedied the problem. At this point I suppose it's just a matter of truing the toile to the pattern and adding ease. I think I went wrong in the first alteration when adding 3/4" to the edge of the CB seam, maybe it was not tapered sharply enough. Like you mentioned, it does seem a bit flatter.

[Gerry]

That's a lot cleaner, well done.

Something I've been guilty of with my own trousers is adding a little too much ease across the seat. It's easy to forget that the cloth is towards the bias there and will have natural give. So long as things don't feel uncomfortably tight while standing, that give will allow sufficient stretch over the seat when sitting. Don't feel that you have to make things loose/baggy at the back for comfort.

[Gerry]

PS With your jeans cut, you could treat them more like trousers, both in cut and construction (don't feel bound to convention). I've used lighter-weight denim (the sort of stuff that gets used for denim dresses) to make conventional trousers and reinforced seams are not required.

The cut/fit is usually far better than that of jeans, especially around the seat: A more-or-less straight CB line from fork-tip to waist (as is the norm with jeans) is never a good idea. Manufacturers do that because it's easier to sew a lapped seam that way, but it creates bagginess below the seat.

The only thing I don't like about denim is that it's not colourfast, so if making things more conventionally, pressing seams etc results in blue stains all over the ironing board cover, from the steam. In that respect, cotton suiting - especially chambray, if you can find it - is a far better option. Also, with the last batch of denim I used, it was out of true. I literally spent an entire morning stretching the stuff back into shape (which required a lot of effort!). Such is the nature of cheaper cloth.