Layout, diagrams and illustrations by Ties Dufraing
 
Cover design by Kevin Lorca
 
Edited by D.R. Birks
copyright © 2019 Rory Duffy, Author
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This book was created to be used with an ACCOMPANYING VIDEO SERIES. The video series contains more videos than there are diagrams in this book. Similarly, there are diagrams in the book that don’t appear in the video series. One WITHOUT THE OTHER will leave several GAPS IN INFORMATION and it is RECOMMENDED that they be PURCHASED TOGETHER for GREATER VALUE.

 
NO PART of this publication may be reproduced or shared in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

 
For questions or comments, please visit www.handcrafttailoracademy.com/forum for more information.

 
This book, Pattern Drafting for Bespoke Menswear, the Imperial System, took almost ten years to complete and brings together the knowledge and experience of Rory Duffy’s seven years of training and twenty plus years of working in the tailoring industry. As a project, there is little doubt it will ever be truly finished and will continue to be added to and revised. Its goal? To enhance the student's experience and provide a single publication that presents all the knowledge one requires to venture into the tailoring trade with confidence that they shall succeed. As every apprentice learns from their master, their work does not become a carbon copy of that teaching but rather takes on life and ideas to become something new and organic.

 
Once the basic lay is understood, any style of garment can be created. Every draft begins with the ideal figure before morphing into reality. Too few bespoke clients are ever really considered to be of “normal proportions”. If they were, they probably wouldn’t buy a bespoke suit. As a colleague once said, “We only get the cripples and the crazies”. Though said in jest as is his character, his words are not absent meaning.

 
Each garment is separated into chapters and each chapter starts with the most commonly used draft. It is, however, important for the student to attempt every draft found in this book and compare them to each other to decipher their variations and come to a complete understanding of how the system operates and can be manipulated into creating a design of their own.

 
Guidelines are set out in each draft to give the student boundaries to work within. As the student’s understanding grows, these boundaries will fall away and expose the truth; there are no rules. Every line is a style line. The distance between them will alter and mould its appearance which in turn will dictate its movement, fit and feel.
 
As we are all so very different from each other, so too must be our garments. Not only should our garments reflect our form, our taste and how we see ourselves, but also how we wish others to see us. The work of the cutter is often likened to that of an illusionist who shows his audience only what he wants them to see with the reality hidden not too far from sight.

 
Savile Row suits in the past were likened to suits of armour. Heavy and seemed as though if left discarded could stand alone. In recent years, techniques of all British Isles tailors have evolved and adopted lightweight cloths and raw materials first conceived on the European continent. Paired with lightweight canvasses, we have not shed these labels of the past but rather given them new meaning. A finely tailored suit has presence and power bestowed upon the wearer mimicking those knights of old in their shining armour. A gentleman donning an elegant tailored suit, clean of cut and free of wrinkles stands as an example to be followed.
 
 
*As with all our books in our book store, please note that this is a digital copy and not a physical copy*