Fit
The shoulder seam is the one line a tailor would rather not move
Nearly everything else on a jacket is negotiable, but the shoulder is where the garment is assembled, and…
· 4 min read
Amrita Kohli
Reporter, The Outfit Files
Amrita has been reporting on fit, fabric, care & repair since long before it was fashionable and reads the small print so you do not have to.
17 articles
Wardrobe
Formality is a scale and most outfits fail by straddling two points on it
Every garment sits somewhere on a continuum from workwear to evening dress, and the ones that look wrong…
· 3 min read
Style History
Rivets are the reason work trousers turned into jeans
The garment was defined by a small piece of metal patented to solve a specific failure, and almost…
· 3 min read
Style History
The T-shirt spent decades as underwear before anyone wore it outside
A knitted cotton undergarment issued for hygiene and comfort became an outer garment through military…
· 3 min read
Fit
Ease is the gap between your measurements and the garment's
Two garments cut for the same body can differ by a hand's width of cloth around the chest, and that surplus…
· 4 min read
Care & Repair
Hardware fails before cloth does and it is the cheapest thing to fix
Buttons, zips, hooks and press studs are the mechanical components of a garment, and most clothes are…
· 4 min read
Care & Repair
A hole in a knit and a hole in a weave need opposite repairs
One fabric is built from continuous loops that unravel and the other from crossing yarns that fray, so the…
· 4 min read
Style History
Buttons sit on opposite sides and nobody can prove why
Men's garments fasten left over right and women's the other way, a convention several centuries old for…
· 3 min read
Fabric
Water repellent and waterproof are two different engineering problems
One treatment makes water bead off the outside of a cloth and the other stops it passing through at all…
· 3 min read
Fabric
Pile fabrics have a direction and it is not a detail
Velvet, corduroy, moleskin and fleece all carry fibres standing away from the base cloth, which changes how…
· 3 min read
Care & Repair
A garment that still smells after washing has a residue problem
Odour lives in oily deposits and the bacteria feeding on them, which is why a normal wash removes visible…
· 3 min read
Wardrobe
Made-to-measure is a pattern adjustment, not a garment built from nothing
The three ways of getting clothes that fit differ in what is actually being changed, and the price gap…
· 3 min read
Wardrobe
A dress code is a constraint, and constraints are easier than freedom
Uniforms and written codes remove choices, and the garments that result are frequently better designed than…
· 3 min read
Fit
The crotch curve is a shape, and no number on the label describes it
Rise tells you how tall a trouser is above the leg, but the curve that runs under the body is what decides…
· 4 min read
Care & Repair
The care label is a legal minimum written to protect the manufacturer
The symbols sewn into a garment describe a treatment the maker is confident will not destroy it, which is a…
· 3 min read
Style History
The sewing machine needed a stitch no hand could make
Mechanising sewing was not a matter of speeding up hand stitching but of inventing a different kind of…
· 4 min read
Style History
The buttonhole is what made close-fitting clothing possible
Buttons existed as ornament for a very long time before anyone cut a slit for them to pass through, and the…
· 3 min read