Oh that Jack! On top of that sculpted torso is handsome head with a quick brain!
In Jack's case he was able to use a finished garment and rely on the pattern making that had been previously accomplished by factory by tracing individual panels of a garment. Some might say this is cheating - I'd say it was clever. If you hadn't made a particular type of garment before it's a great way to learn - quickly. Either way it's a common practice for students and professionals in fashion to work.
An ugly truth - it is common for most fashion companies to send out a designer to buy (later return) a garment, tear out all the seams, lay out all the pieces and trace and measure away. This way you can sew up a design without too much trial and error. This is true of bags and shoes too.
When I was a lad studying drawing at the Art Institute of Chicago we spent hours drawing (and copying) the masters. It's a great way to learn. Same for fashion. The Museum at FIT allows students to handle couture gowns from 18th - 20th Centuries - in this way they can peek and poke at them to see how something is constructed by learning from the masters. It is absolutely amazing the structure and work that exists in a 1950's Christian Dior gown.
Draping on the other hand would be applying muslin to a dress form, marking, pinning, cutting, applying the muslin to pattern paper, cutting fabric, etc, etc. Another way to learn but much more time consuming.
This is why, I think, the quality of the designers work was so inconsistent.
Anthony Cady
Fashion Institute of Technology
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