Before starting my drag queen sewing pattern, I wanted to establish the current issues drag queens face when designing and making their own clothes, particularly if they are working from women's sewing patterns. I asked the following questions:
Q1 - Do you ever buy ready-to-wear clothes that are aimed at women? If no, please skip to question 5.
Q2 - What size men's clothes do you usually buy?
Q3 - When buying women's clothes, what size do you find has the best fit for you?
Q4 - When buying ready-to-wear women's clothes, do you have fit issues with any of the following (please tick all that apply):
Q5 - Do you ever sew your own clothes?
Q6 - If yes, do you ever buy women's sewing patterns?
Q7 - Please list the typical alterations you make to the sewing patterns, if any:
Q8 - Would you be interested in feminine style sewing patterns specifically designed for AMAB people?
Q9 - What kind of garments would you like to see as sewing patterns?
Q10 - Do you have any other comments?
The full report will be submitted with my final major project, but I wanted to use this space to show some of the answers that I found really interesting and that have already influenced my final sewing pattern.
The first three questions were to establish what sort of size a man would look for in women's clothing, in relation to his own size. The fourth question was to address the fit issues that they then have with the clothing, depending on where it is on the body. The results of this question looked like this:
Armhole size seemed to be the most common problem, which is something I had discovered when I was making male and female mannequin arms back in 2020. Sleeve length and leg length are the next biggest problems, and these can be easily fixed.
40% of the respondents had a problem with chest size, although I suspect this is largely to do with back size, with a larger back taking up any ease from the chest and forcing side seams away from the sides and onto the back. It's interesting that chest size is a problem, as my research into unisex sizing used chest measurements as a standard for both sexes.
For those of the respondents that sew, I asked what alterations they made to sewing patterns, and the responses were as follows:
That some respondents would reduce waist size might seem surprising at first, but if you take into account that a lot of drag queens pad their chests and use chest plates, when it comes to choosing a sewing pattern size they are likely to start with a larger size than their actual chest size, which in turn means they have to size down when it comes to fitting their waist. This is something to take into consideration when drafting a pattern - increasing the chest size but not increasing the waist by the same amount.
It occurred to me that when sizing a sewing pattern for drag queens, perhaps it might be useful to list chest size with pads and chest size without. Then waist size could correlate with the unpadded chest size. But perhaps this would be too complicated, or too much 'working out' for the average home sewer? I was pleased to see some reference to this in question 9, when I asked what kind of garments they would like to see as sewing patterns:
The first reply, "Basic patterns than we can adjust or modify", reminded me that drag queens in particular are probably more used to adapting sewing patterns than your average home sewer. As someone who teaches dressmaking, one thing I come across a lot in my students is a reluctance to make any changes to a pattern, fearing that something will go wrong. Through necessity, drag queens are likely to be more practised at pattern alterations.
I wonder if I could potentially make a sort of 'join the dots' sewing pattern than involved choosing chest size, waist size and hip size, then selecting these points on a pre-drawn pattern, then joining them up. The feasibility of this is something to investigate in when drafting the pattern, which I will discuss in my next blog post.
I did appreciate that one of the respondents made reference to the style of the pattern and mentioned pointed shoulders. I do feel that my sewing pattern should feature dramatic shoulders, as it would tie-in with the rest of my work but more importantly would be visually striking and evidently not an 'ordinary' sewing pattern.
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