Why Draping Is Important For Fashion Lerner And Fashion Industry

The idea behind draping is to provide a better understanding of drafting. A form structure shaped like the human body eases you out with knowing how practical your designs are and if they can be implemented in a proper way. The word draping emerged in the 1930s, since then it had made great contributions in the fashion industry and is prominently introduced in fashion designing courses. One of the prominent examples of early success that draping marked was the techniques that were created by Madeleine Vionnet and Madame Gras during the early 20t century. Before making dress forms, the method involved the use of miniature dolls that were dressed by making fixes and pinning a cloth to them. The inspiration Vionnet sought was in Greek statues, she looked at the statue’s garments which were flowing like water. Here she invented bias-cut dresses. These were earlier used in collars, now were helpful in making sensual yet simple Vionnet dresses. 

Another designer who used draping in the initial years, and was called the “ Queen of Drapes’ was Madame Gres. Her dresses were inspired by classical draping styles, and it was popular to use real models for draping instead of dress foams. Her ideas were closer to European culture with off-white and dull colors, and determining factors like skin tone, coherent form, posturing, and the relationship between light and shadow.  These two left a very deep impact on fashion till now, and so on the draping techniques. 

Commonly, the preferred cloth material for draping is muslin in England, whereas, in the USA the cloth used is toil, a loosely-woven cotton fabric. It comes in a variety of weights, you must pick the one which is similar to the weight of the fabric you will be using for the final garment. These are inexpensive unbleached fabrics, so they can be used to frame your idea. It is important to get exact marking on the cloth according to styles and patterns desired before cutting the final garment. But you need to know how to choose the exact texture or weight, and similar draping style, otherwise the fabric won’t fall into your imagination, and there won’t be any use of the whole process. You can use cheaper and low-quality variants of the fabrics that are hard to resemble with the fabric, such as silk organza, silk charmeuse, or silk chiffon. For some non-woven fabrics like knits, you may use already knitted fabric to know fits and design.