Extended Sizing
What Do I Mean By Extended Sizing?
Let me start out by saying I no longer use the terms Plus Sized or Curvy Sized ... but we do need to use certain terms like larger, wider or fuller as comparative terms for the simple geometric reality of being able to teach you how to do something. I do try to avoid such terminology wherever possible, so please understand I'm not trying to offend anyone or insinuate anything beyond geometry. When It comes to a descriptive term for more shapely blocks I use the term Extended Sizing.
I'm going to start with the political so we can get it out of the way right from the start. Most people think that making one size is just as easy as another ... it's not ... the larger or more shaplier sizes are more complicated, complex patterns with way more considerations required than say, your average, median body type (we'll get into that in a minute). But we're not really allowed to say why they're not the same because some people find it offensive.
In four different Facebook groups so far I have been banned for answering the question of how many blocks are needed to provide a reasonable spread of basic blocks for which size ranges. For me, I don't care what size you are ... I work with numbers, not feelings. I want to make sure a large enough percentage of people will fit the product before I start to produce it ... there's no point in making something that won't fit enough people and unfortunately that's exactly what people are doing in order to avoid the cancel culture wreaking havoc in the fashion industry. It's apparently better to make something you know won't fit the larger percentage of people of those particular measurements because being told you're not a good designer is better than being cancelled for not making extended sizes. We need to fix this but I'm not sure what the answer is.
The problem? Extended sizes and current political correctness will not allow the conversation that's needed to fix the problem to take place. Well that's ridiculous Stuart, of course we want to fix the problem. No, no we don't. We want to someone to perform a miracle without accepting that a miracle is first required .... this is the conversation that needs to take place. Every time I start, I get banned. And people from the group that banned me then come asking me privately how they can solve it for themselves ... the very same people that ridiculed me publicly for trying to help explain the issues that needed to be solved first, who then banned me, then continued to ridicule me, message me to ask me what the issues are and how to fix them. I didn't create this problem, nor am I the messenger, but I do know how to address it and I am willing to create a solution, if people will suspend the politics long enough that the technical issues can be looked at. Enough said. I honestly want to resolve these issues, but I'd rather not get crucified for trying. I
I think I have a path to a technical solution. I know what percentage will fit into each size increment of my 12% swimwear blocks for example. By fit, I refer to a list of criteria that I personally judge as being adequate for commercial sale ... eg; ripples, uneven tension, print distortion, etc ... what is an arbitrary but reasonable assessment that is a fair bit stricter than customer expectations. I know that almost 60% of people will reasonably fit my 104cm swimwear blocks ... I even used to provide that number on the blocks themselves ... I did that in the hope of getting people to see that as we increase size, we increase the variation in shape. And if there's variation in shape, then one simple graded up style is no longer going to work after a certain point. I can have several people all of identical measurements but all requiring a completely different block because their shape is so different ... I've seen literally several hundred people like this.
So what's the solution. First we need to decide what percentage of people is adequate for fitting one particular block. My 12% blocks stop at 60%. Commercially I'm told 75% is the minimum and usually we can tweak a 60% fit block up to 75% at the pattern level (not always, but mostly and I'll get to that another time). If you decide that fitting just 50% of the extended size market reasonably well is enough then think again ... I watch people tear designers apart for poor fitting. Literally no one accepts that it's an impossible task to fit every shape with just one shape ... they all expect you to perform this miracle. It won't happen, it can't happen and it never will happen.
I have always worked with a two thirds or 66% acceptability ... which means my largest size was a 100cm bust and 105cm hips. Anything over that became seriously problematic. But I could, as I mentioned, improve that at the pattern level. The majority of my clients demand 75%, or around 96 to 98cm bust. That's not much room when traditional "plus" sizes start at 96cm. Are we noticing anything yet???
Let me discuss the term plus size and where it originated. Have you ever heard the conversation of who determines what "plus size is? Plus size is the point at which a single block no longer works for 75% or more of those of that particular measurement. Or at least that's what it meant 30 years ago. Nowadays people give it an arbitrary size number which completely kills the discussion. Plus size DOES NOT mean your measurements are bigger ... it's not a reference to you whatsoever. It means something completely different entirely.
Are you ready for the biggest revelation ever?? Long ago a very clever designer (I have no idea who sorry) realized that you couldn't just keep grading up following grading rules because that's just one path ... or one shape ... you need a different set of grading rules for different shapes and each set of rules started at a different point. What he was saying was that as you increased in size you reach a point at which you need two blocks instead of one, and then three or four instead of two and so on.... you needed an extra block after a certain bust size ... you needed to add one more block ... PLUS one more block. His second block was denoted "+", his third "++" and so on. Plus refers to the point at which one block is no longer adequate to create a reasonable expectation of fit. Originally, plus simply meant more shape choices ... that's it ... a completely innocent and very helpful observation ... until retailers hijacked the word!
You can try and label your sizes however you like, but you cannot get past the fact that you need to divide your grading path, or add extra blocks at the same point every time. You don't decide that point, the market doesn't decide that point, vanity doesn't decide that point ... nature and geometry decides that point. Until we can accept this reality there is zero chance of moving forward with a discussion.
So how does this theory work? Well if I stick with 66%. I need to start a second block shape that branches from the original at around a 100cm bust ... so I start my new path at 102cm while still maintaining the old path (or a deviation of it) ... ie; I now have 2 blocks. I can continue along these 2 paths as long as together they cover at least 60% still .... when (together) they drop below that then we look at each one to see which one is losing % fastest and split that one to get back up to 60% again ... and so on and so on. This is the theory and it's absolutely valid and correct ... but how do you administrate, label and explain that to the public? Which of the three blocks do they try on? do we give them each a new descriptive name? Do you become plus pear, plus apple, plus square? Can you imagine the fall out from that???
Now until recently branching your grading line was the only know way to manually draft a set of blocks that would fit well enough to cover all potential shapes. Each of those branching blocks were drafted one at a time from a new set of measurements with careful regard to shape. This is still the only way to manually create the kind of inclusive fit we really want to see. It's completely failed however because industry sees it as too complicated and messy ... and to be honest, it's commercially unviable for almost everyone. And this is why you see most stretch wear ending at around the 100cm under bust measurement unless they're speciality brands.
Don't despair though! Recent technology has become available that can use AI to analyse hundreds of thousands of body scans and identify a single grading path by changing other criteria in the drafting process that simply cannot be done by hand. For example, we can change the shape of a garment by increasing or decreasing tension along certain lines and not just by changing the vertical or horizontal measurements on our blocks ... several tension lines can change dynamically through the grading path alongside changes in measurements to increase the percentage of people fitting successfully. Unfortunately there isn't a formulae I can give you to do that by hand ... it's all in the AI and it works extremely well. I've used it to create the special extended size block in my shop. When I have more data available I'll re-run the analysis and draft a new set of extended size blocks.
Now for those of you experiencing some dismay because of the above, don't panic. You can still draft a single block to your own measurements the long way, just not a full ready to wear range as yet if you don't have the advanced software available to only a few companies. This site is designed principally for students and home sewists with some, but limited, pattern making experience. You will still need to create the One Piece Block, but modify it … the content of which is somewhat long winded but I don't know any other way to present it. It's not an easy topic and I don't recommend doing this unless you are really familiar with stretch fabrics and pattern making ... I'm still here to support your questions if you want to go that route! Just always remember ...
... with increased size comes increased variation in shape!
I Want To Do It The Long Way!
Well that's what this section is for ... and it's also a good idea to familiarise yourself with all these concepts if you're learning pattern making even if you don't do extended sizes.
Unfortunately, very few fashion schools teach the intricacies of fitting extended size shapes because they usually only have a few hours each week over 2 to 3 years to teach the basics of pattern making. Some might touch on the subject in tailoring but it's extremely rare to find a school with the resources and time to offer the extra education required for stretch fit pattern making. Heck most schools I know are dropping the hours dedicated to pattern making because they justify that this is now mostly done by computer programs .... programs that have a single fitting method that is utterly hopeless in most cases for extended sizes. Only 10% of fashion schools are even offering basic stretch fit pattern making courses even though stretch garments make up the majority of sales these days. So don't go blaming schools or students because people don't know how to make extended sizes .... it takes years of experience and that's unfortunately slowly disappearing from the work place.
Ok so let's be more specific ... by extended sizes I mean a measurement beyond around an underbust measurement of 84cm. You might be taller or bigger busted or much bigger hips or indeed your every measurement might be scaled up perfectly proportionally from a 5ft 6in Australian size 8B only you are 6ft 4in tall and wear a 40D bra! Larger does not mean fatter. Larger means one or more measurements are larger than those that have a predictable shape with respect to size.
So Let's get into it!
Fabric Questions
Lycra is widely loved by all because it curves and stretches and goes around things while still sitting flat on the body. Darting isn't generally needed and a simple curved side seam is all that's required to make it fit snugly all over. Right? Wrong! Stretch textiles have the capacity to absorb a certain amount of distortion and still fit correctly. The emphasis here is on a certain amount. This is why you do see bust darts on larger sizes. As the sizing gets larger, the amount we require the textile to distort also increases ... but the fabric hasn't changed, has it?
To illustrate my point let’s consider the humble shoulder strap. As the strap gets narrower, we generally need to shorten its length to maintain the same tension. When we add more weight to the end of that strap we stretch it further, meaning for the same final length we need to shorten it some more right? Wrong again. Lycra only stretches to a point before it doesn't stretch any further. But before it gets to that point it takes tension away from other areas causing a cascading effect of trouble if you go for the quick fix. How about making the strap wider? Sure now that's the clear and obvious second solution ... but it's not a simple scale up in width. A bust at 94cm will get by on 3cm, but at 40D for example we'd be looking at a width of 5.5cm for the same support tension. It's all about tension, remember. But at 5.5cm wide it will look very odd indeed. Anyone know the answer yet?
The clever student will point out that larger busts need a bra type support so why not add extra lining or fabric to the strap area to stiffen the fabric so it supports better. Yes this will work. You could line the strap (and indeed the whole bust area) with something like power net but the problem still exists in the rest of the garment ... all you've done is increase the rebound capacity of the strap and the rest of the garment is still the same ... resulting in a mass of ripples fanning out over the bust, or indeed under it if you use a bra structure. Not only that, but now we have a much more complex and more expensive garment to manufacture. The more complex the garment, the less size range it will suit and hence limit its potential market. How do we do this simply without chasing ourselves round in circles? How many home sewists that are, say a 42B, want to start learning bras and swimsuits both at the same time?
The clever student was half right to suggest stiffening the fabric with extra lining. The problem here is controlling the differing fabric tensions over the whole body and chasing ourselves round in circles trying to get the garment to sit flat afterwards. Of course you could carry the extra lining all over the whole body to keep the tension even but why not do something even simpler? What? Simply increase the weight of the textile from the standard 170-180sm to something heavier like 195gsm or even 210gsm. You might have to specially order it, but it means simpler construction, narrower straps, standard lining and a whole lot less ripples ... but most of all it means even and more predictable tension control over the whole body, thus easier patterns.
All the above should help to illustrate why fabric specification is so critical to pattern making, and why the same pattern can produce both successful garments and complete failures.
Body Shaping: The Four Areas Of Consideration
Generally there are four areas in which shape varies significantly as size increases. In order of significance they are...
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Hips, bottom and legs
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Waist: both front and back, plus sway
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Bust: mostly by increased cup variation
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Pelvic Tilt (covered generally in next chapter)
So shape quickly becomes infinitely variable.
Hips, Legs & Bottoms
For any particular size, the range in hip measurements for a woman is greater than any other measurement (for men it's the waist), and with it, the larger the hip measurement, the greater the amount of shape variation. For example, a 76cm waist will have a hip measurement of between 95.7cm and 111.4cm, 95% of the time. That's more than the 12% one might use for ease. But even if your high hip measurement is precisely, say 100cm, there are so many ways the shape at your full hips can be different from the stereotypical average that the patterns must change in order to fit correctly. So you can see how impossible ready-to-wear might be! See the illustration below. The red line represents the high hip line that most people use ... and shows why I prefer to use a lower full hip measurement over the cheeks.
Figure A represents the stereotypical outline shape of most people. If you take a look at the table below you can get an idea of how many people in each size group are actually represented by this shape. What you will notice is that as you increase in size, fewer people within that group are actually represented by figure A.
Figure B represents what is referred to as squared hip. This is initially a distinct skeletal change that is mostly seen in taller North American women (it still occurs in all sizes and heights). I have no idea what caused this change but I have trouble finding it in any images going back further than the 70's. Squared hip is usually padded by a little bit of fat creating a nice smooth shape which tucks in quite quickly toward the waist (about 40%) or the waist is almost missing (60%). Keep in mind this is a hip condition ... similar effects can be caused by things like "muffin top", the ring of fat at the lower tummy which teenagers like to hang over the top of their hipster jeans.
Figure C is referred to as jodhpur thighs. It's really only of interest to swimwear because it's usually accompanied by a dropping of the outer edge of the bottom cheeks (about 85%). It can't really be hidden by swimwear but we can do things like raising the leg line to draw the eye away from it. We do however also need to extend the leg line further out over the bottom, or the angle of the cheeks will cause the garment to ride up. This is why you had such high leg lines with square back bottoms in the 1980's... jodhpurs were the issue of the decade in women's magazines... and so many women were told they ‘suffered’ from this figure shape and swimwear styles were designed to cater for it. In fact does anyone remember the soft cotton Lycra bodysuits with the press studs in the crotch?
Figure D is where the inside thighs touch when standing straight with your knees together. It usually occurs because of and stays after pregnancy but can occur naturally in a person of any size. It's of significance to swimwear because it's associated with lower and closer together bottom cheeks (or better said; there is little to no natural valley between the cheeks. From a pattern making perspective you can open the cheeks a little with a concave centre back seam (best suited to smaller sizes) or go the complete opposite and create a convexed centre back seam and allow the garment to move further out over the cheeks (larger sizes that also have jodhpurs for example).
Figure E represents both jodhpurs and square hips together. While exaggerated in this image, many North American and African women are generally of this figure type.
Figure F represents both jodhpurs and touching thighs, more typical of European and Australian mothers.
Figure G is the trifecta and usually (honestly) is a weight issue, although it is possible to have all three and it not be a weight issue on much taller women ... the taller you are the more likely you are to also have jodhpurs, although the less likely your thighs will touch because both your pelvis is bigger and you thighs are longer (then it's a simple matter of physics and mechanics).
The above table is based on a survey size of 5,706 women of assorted nationality. You can clearly see from the table that as size increases the percentage of people of figure type A decreases sharply. The most notable shape issue is jodhpurs … in Australian sizes 14 and up you are more likely to have them than to not, with 88% of women size 16+ having this feature. Which must raise the question is it normal to have them, with the smaller sizes being the odd ones out? Square hips and inside thigh do increase with size but are not significant numerically in themselves until combined with jodhpurs. There was one instance in a size 8 in which both squared hips and inside thigh were present but not jodhpurs ... this was on a very odd shaped model so I've removed her from the statistics.
From a custom pattern making point of view the trick is to identify which conditions you or your client have and design the garment accordingly.
The Front And Back Waist
The waistline is one of the trickiest areas to work with in extended sizes. In most cases we're not talking about a simple scaled up body type, we're really dealing with minimising the appearance of a weight issue. No doubt most of you are familiar with what looks best as far as styles go (e.g.; avoiding horizontal stripes, etc.), but we're talking pattern making.
Changing tummy and waist shape is usually done by use of stiffer fabrics or linings. Obviously the less stretch left in the fabric the less negative ease you can use, so there is a trade-off between being squeezed flatter and actually being able to put on the garment. Sounds simple doesn't it? Just add in some more ease and stiffen the fabric even more? Wrong, there is a catch.
Let's presume we're a little soft in the tummy area. Simply making the garment tighter isn't going to do much more than create a Michelin man effect when we bend over ... the garment will try to even out the tension in the fabric naturally by falling into the soft spots and riding over the rolls that won't compress ... sorry if I'm not pulling punches here but I need to be clear.
So instead we have two other options ... control textiles and compression textiles. The latter, compression, is a textile similar to spandex except that it has a very high rebound modulus. This means it can stretch pretty similarly to standard swim/dance spandex but it requires much more force to get it there (3-8% negative ease depending on the mesh) So it's tight to get on but it's still quite easy ... but what it does is move around the soft tissue of the body until everything is an even tension ... you may have heard of it being called shapewear. It's often mesh like in appearance but doesn't need to be. Higher levels of compression are NOT a change in knitting technique, but mainly achieved by increasing thickness of the elastic core of the inlay-yarn. What this means is that they can still distort locally just as normal spandex can ... it doesn't hide rolls (well ok maybe a tiny bit better) but typically moves them to somewhere they can be squished up ... you can still see an uneven surface.
Control textiles are something entirely different. These are a very different bar knit technique. These are low stretch, high rebound textiles but they are linked across the entire surface of the textile so there is no localized distortion ... they are designed to be a flattening textile not a compression textile. They hide the lumps and bumps by being stiffer while still having a mild stretch ... the best know example of which is Powernet. Typically we use it at no more than 4% negative ease. So when we talk about controlling the lumps and bumps in tummies, we're talking about lining with textiles like Powernet.
The problem we have today is that very few people know the differences between control and compression and retailers frequently mix them up too. So perform your own poke and stretch tests or read the material data sheets from your wholesaler.
When you have more rebound power at the front than at the back what you'll notice is that the back obviously stretches much more than the front ... but more importantly your side seams are no longer at the halfway point ... ie; on the body your side seams have moved significantly towards the front. This is the problem with almost every swimwear brand that uses Powernet as a control layer. There is also another problem with this .... all the tension lines in the back panel are now completely messed up because they don't match the front block properly anymore. It's very common to see ripples emanating from the either end of the seam used to lock the Powernet in place ... these are called loading corners and they represent a single point at which the layers suddenly change how much they can stretch.
Some people will suggest the following fixes:
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move the side seams backward on the panels
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reducing negative ease in the front panel
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increasing negative ease in the back panel
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using more panels
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using Powernet all the way around
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combination of all/any of the above
Actually the solution to this problem is none of the above .... you need to use what we call a floating sleeve ... a compression and control layer that's attached only at the vertical ends (typically from under bust to leg holes) and will pull in smaller than the outer layer.
We need to go completely around the body with something of equal rebound .... control fabrics and compression fabrics are very similar in rebound (modulus of elasticity) .... this is why I mentioned them both earlier lol ... thus we can create a pattern for them both at 4% negative ease that will stretch way more than two layers of just control fabric, so you can get into it ... you could even lower that negative ease to 3% if you wanted. The compression layer is what has the strength to hold the control layer in place without rippling, while still allowing you to get into it.
The outer layer can be lowered to 7-8% and you just stretch to fit when you attach the leg elastics. It's really that easy. In answer to who did this the first time successfully .... Gottex. Now it's copied by a few high end swimwear brands so I'm told, but still so many brands haven't worked it out yet. Wasn't that exciting?
But there is also another problem with varying fabric types and linings in the same garment. Because they each have differing rebound tensions they move differently. Sometimes this is desired, sometimes this is terrible. Using control fabrics is great for flattening tummies but slows things from moving in other directions too .... fore example, when you sit down and increase the length from center back waist to crotch that length has to come from somewhere or the garment gets eaten by ones’ bottom ... usually the garment rides inwards from the outer cheeks first and then gets eaten. Many designers don't line the back to allow it to stretch more because of this but then they just exaggerate the first problem. The trick is to balance the tensions correctly.
So how do we balance the tensions when deciding where to place side seams (or working with different tensions anywhere else for that matter)? Simple! Let's say you want to line the front with Powernet and the back with normal swimwear lining. Cut yourself a strip of fabric about a meter long and 10cm wide. Sew liner to one half and Powernet to the other and then stretch it. Lets say, you stretch the whole strip to 130cm. Measure the length of the swimwear lining half (should be around 75cm depending on the liner quality) and the Powernet half (around 55cm) and you'll soon see that the Powernet lining gives up 55:75 of the stretch of standard swimwear lining. This means if you are using 12% negative ease normally, you need to lessen the negative ease of the section lined with Powernet to 8.8% (12% x 55/75) ... or essentially you're moving the side seams backward 1.5cm each side on for a 100cm hip measurement. This needs to be done for the whole area lined with Powernet. That's quite a visual difference even if it doesn't seem like it at first. In this way the seams will all sit where you want them to sit and the garment also moves more predictably!
The above balances tensions correctly, but what if you want even more tummy control? Well really your only option is to use control and compression textiles (shapewear), all the way around the back ... think of it as a stretchy corset. Of course you still need to let out the negative ease in both front and now back panels to the correct amount for the rebound of your textile. About the only other thing to consider is that you cannot do this with a design that drops below the waist at the back (or even a few centimeters above it) or the garment will simply gape open and all your efforts may be lost. Support netting (control and/or compression fabrics) requires full circumferential covering to be effective! Also remember that the garment will be stiffer and more difficult to get into even though it's actually a little larger in the tummy section. The image below shows theoretically how I'd modify the pattern (not the block) for use with full wrap round shapewear ...
The red shaded area represents the tummy we're trying to control or flatten. You'll note that the tummy area is below the leg line at the side seam on a standard block so I've chosen firstly to use a squarer leg line. The dashed red line represents the limit of the support netting (I don't like to use netting in the crotch because it tends to rise). The blocks on the right show how I've reduced the horizontal negative ease across the whole bottom half of the blocks and then blended it in to the side seam above the tummy area. I've also squared off the side seam a fraction at the leg line, to correct the leg line curve, rather than adjust the leg line itself. This is the theory.
OK, moving on ... so now you're aware that side seam position can affect the appearance of a garment at the waist and hips. But where should it sit for optimal aesthetics? Optimal is how the human eye expects to see things in nature because in nature everything is balanced. If you're carrying a heavy box in front of your body you will lean backward to balance. If you could defy gravity for a moment and not lean backward then everyone would look at you strangely. Have you ever noticed how actors lifting painted polystyrene rocks in old movies always look ridiculous when they throw them? So moving the side seam forward or backward can create the illusion of less front weight but also gives a certain unease in the appearance ... think carefully before moving it! Straightening the side seam to make it look like you're standing square, looks as odd as the actor with the rock.
But it's not just the tummy we need to consider. With respect to waist we are also interested in sway and, on some people, a pad of fat that sits just on and below the back waist (hereinafter referred to politely as fuller lower back). Take a look at the illustration below. The top picture shows the side profile of the stereotypical figure.
If we are to divide the hip measurement in two when making the blocks, the side seam sits exactly half way on either side ... but if the majority of the measurement is in the front, then the side seam will appear more forward. Now a certain amount of forward is needed because straight obviously looks wrong, but too far forward looks obvious as well. The correct position is somewhere in between ... i.e.; the design 'accepts' the person is carrying weight on the tummy by allowing the seam to move forward, but not so much so that the concept of how much weight is accurately realised by the viewer ... it's a fine line. I tend to draw the side seam (sometimes even literally) on the body as you see on the images above ... what looks right to the eye. Then I measure how much is in front and how much is in the back ... let's say my client, who has a waist of 78cm, has 43cm in front and 35cm in the back (based on an optimal aesthetic). Now if we had left the seam at the halfway point of 39cm you can see that it would have been way too forward. There is the argument that if you put the side seam exactly at visual optimum as shown on the illustrations then you are trying too hard to hide something and people will again notice. This is why I place the seam at what I consider to be aesthetic to me.
Ok so we know we might need to move the side seam backward or forward, but what about sway? How does that affect the pattern? Sway is two things. It's firstly the natural curvature of the spine (which varies from person to person) and secondly it's a result of arching back to carry extra weight (think pregnancy for example). Now because the spine is at the back of the body, no matter how much you arch, the length of the back doesn't change significantly (not usually more than 2-3%) ... but the length of the front does. If you've made a one piece block according to the instructions you will already accounted for most of this, but it might serve benefit to tweak a little extra length in to the front block at the waist line. How much? If you consider that this will mostly be required in conjunction with moving the side seam backwards you can kill two birds with one stone. By moving the side seam backward we need to make the front waist measurement wider and the back waist measurement smaller. When we make it wider the length of the front side seam will shorten (until it's square up with the hips at least) ... thus we need to lengthen it a little to make it match the original measurement and hence the back panel. It won't be much but it will usually correspond to the extra length needed in the front block ... so I tend to let one dictate the other. Furthermore, the narrowing of the back waist measurement will cause a lengthening of the side seam so I chop a bit out of the back block height at the waist line to make it match the original side seam length once again ... the reverse of what we did at the front. The result is often a block/pattern which looks peculiar, but a garment which has far less ripples, especially when the person twists.
It's even easier if we have a centre back seam because we can simply put in a waist dart at the back to take out length from precisely the centre back ... this is more suited to people with narrower back waists relative to their front waist width as you can't take out all you'll need by moving the side seam alone (and you may not want to do that for the aesthetic reasons we mentioned above).
Ready to wear designers will ignore almost all of the above because first and foremost they need a garment that has shelf appeal ... one that sits flat by having the front and back panels match with an evenly placed side seam. They want you to try on the garment assuming that you'll miss the finer aesthetic details until well after purchase ... and they're right to do so because most people will choose to try on something that sits nice and flat! Custom swimwear designers need to heed the above strictly because although the person won't know why, this will be the most significant difference in the feel and look of the garment as the person moves. Don't underestimate it!