Dart manipulation and doublets

 I am making a few doublets this year and this one  happens to have horizontal lines of trim which means I will want to move my dart shaping to accommodate the design.







I started with an understructure that is seamed vertically and you can see the shaping that is built into it.
These doublets fit the body quite closely and I often opt for a more modern approach in the understructure, accommodating the body with darts or seaming. It is easier to fit this way and allows us to manipulate the outer fabric over the shape more akin to the period.

Once I have fit the understructure, I correct the pattern and in this case, manipulate the darts into horizontal lines which is where the trim will be featured. You can see that the front dart turns into very minimal darts into the side seam, and this will be easy to ease in. The back shoulder dart and the blade dart/seam reveal the greater amount of shaping required to fit the back of the body. This results in two seams horizontally in the upper back area as they are too large to ease in nicely. The centre back here is on the fold which is how the over layer will also be cut.

After I drew in my lines and double checked that I liked the placement, I then had to mark in the positions of the slashing, and get some samples of the slashing made to see whether the  slashes could just be straight cuts, or should be shaped cuts allowing more of the under colour to show through. The original concept had a flat red silk under the slashes, but it looked a little uninspired, so the designer asked for something with a bit more oomph, so we are experimenting with it here.




As I was getting this prepared for waiting hands, I was reminded about how much time it takes to prepare all the elements of the patterning as well as decoration and to cut all the pieces out. The sleeves also have this treatment of lines of trim with slashing in between and the silk underneath!  
Luckily I have very experienced team members who love the challenge of sampling and trying out ways to get the result we are after and it lets me focus on drawing out all the details.
Maybe a bit too much of the under silk here but it is headed in the right direction.