The Catsuit Tutorial

I've completed the instructions for turning the women's 8% blocks into an 8% catsuit block with:

- no side seams

- a center front fold

- a center back seam

- an inside leg seam

- dart shaping at the waist

It's a very big tutorial of 25 steps that I really only recommend to those who've tackled a few of the simpler tutorials successfully already. Even if you aren't going to do a catsuit it's still a good thing to read through and learn about how it's done ... I've put some extra theory explanations in there to make it a little more thorough.

If you find it too difficult but you still want the blocks, then if you can wait a few more days, I'll make it available as a block CAD/PDF in the shop ... I just have a lot going at the moment.

It's only been proof read by one person so far so there may be a few typos still hidden in there ... if you spot one then please let me know.

What Does The Future Hold?

You know how I get annoyed from time to time about Instagram fashion influencers because they really don't know all that much about fashion and more often than not they mislead or misuse terminology? I tend to refer to them fake fashionistas ...

Well you wouldn't believe what Tanya Marie showed me today ... an influencer with 2.8 million followers ... that's someone making an awful lot of money right? ... yet she's not even a real person but a CGI ... yeah that's right ... a fake 3D model of a person wearing clothes from her advertisers ... like wtf???

See https://www.instagram.com/lilmiquela or @lilmiqelua

This isn't a whine by any means ... I'm actually very impressed with the skill it must have taken to pull this off! Considering all the issues with covid, social distancing, all the fashion shows being cancelled or even the newest concept of computer generated runway shows, was this really unexpected? Is this the way of the future? If it's ok to computer generate a runway show or magazine adverts, then is this just evolution?

Tanya was wondering about using CGI models for testing how your garments fit (a bit like Clo3D I guess) or using this to test the market before actually manufacturing anything. You could literally create a design, and use a CGI influencer to convince the world's buyers they needed it before you even sewed up a single sample.

If you wonder what the future the future of fashion will look like then this is probably it. Here you have a CGI with more sales potential than all my 30+ years of experience, shows, and marketing ... next to this, I'm a dinosaur.

But you know what's even more scary? What becomes of those people just learning how to make patterns and clothes for the first time now? I'm wondering if soon there will be a plug in app for our websites (you know, like there are forms, graphs, slideshows etc) that you can import your clothing designs to and the CGI will wear them and walk around in them in and in a way almost indistinguishable from a real person wearing the real clothes. Or is this even already a thing and I just don't know about it yet?

A Catsuit With No Side Seams!

So I did that one piece catsuit with no side seams and a center front fold (first image) ... I even took snap shots of my screen at various intervals to show how its done ... 23 separate intervals because there's an awful lot of steps (next 3 images are random steps).

And then I did the whole exercise all over again, in a different size, to make sure I didn't make any mistakes and the process was correct. And because I now have two different sizes I can grade between them rapidly in CAD (last image).

So next I'm going to write up a tutorial on how to use the 8% women's body and leg block to make this catsuit ... so if you have those blocks you can do it yourself ... it's not easy but it's entirely possible and there's some fascinating concepts to learn ...

And last but not least, if you have the sleeve block, it'll go straight in.

Once that's all done I'll take the graded version and turn that into a layered PDF and the two CAD files for those who just want to get on with it.

I did say last but not least already didn't I? Darn. Oh well, sometime shortly after all of the above I'll do another tutorial on how to tweak a catsuit to do an asymmetric version ... although that might not be based on this version without side seams because that would be pushing the laws of physics just a little too far.

This was certainly an interesting exercise ... stay tuned ... or join us in the Facebook Group to discuss it.