# The New Dressmaker

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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The
New Dressmaker
WITH COMPLETE AND FULLY ILLUSTRATED INSTRUCTIONS ON EVERY POINT CONNECTED WITH
Sewing, Dressmaking and Tailoring
FROM THE ACTUAL STITCHES TO THE CUTTING MAKING, ALTERING, MENDING AND CLEANING OF CLOTHES FOR LADIES, MISSES, GIRLS, CHILDREN, INFANTS, MEN AND BOYS.
"THE NEW DRESSMAKER" IS THE ACCEPTED AUTHORITY ON DRESSMAKING AND TAILORING AND THE METHODS WHICH IT GIVES MAY BE USED WHENEVER THE CURRENT STYLES CALL FOR THEM.
A New, Revised and Enlarged Edition
THE BUTTERICK PUBLISHING COMPANY
NEW YORK TORONTO PARIS LONDON
THIRD EDITION
PUBLISHED BY
THE BUTTERICK PUBLISHING COMPANY
BUTTERICK BUILDING. NEW YORK
PARISLONDONNEW YORKTORONTO
Copyright, 1921, by The Butterick Publishing Company
CONTENTS
THE NEW DRESSMAKER
PREFACE
THE best-dressed women in the world have their clothes made for them, on lines that are suited to their type, and in colors and materials that emphasize their good points and minimize their weak ones.
Women of wealth and fashion go to Paris for their clothes. The woman of moderate means can not go to Paris nor can she have her clothes made for her. The only way that she can be really well dressed is to make her clothes herself. She too can exercise her taste and discrimination in choosing the correct fashion, the new material, the charming color, the line that will make her look young, slender and elegant. And like the woman who wears French dresses, she can have clothes that are cut to fit her figure, that are not too long in the shoulder, too big under the arms, too low in the waist, or too short at the elbow.
WOMEN are so well trained in economics nowadays they will readily understand that in making their own clothes they pay for the bare materials and nothing else, and so effect a tremendous saving which is further increased by the fact that they can buy a better quality of fabric that will lengthen the life of their clothes.
With the present simple styles dressmaking was never as easy as it is now. Compared to the elaborate trimmings of the "awful Eighties" and even the whalebone and crinolines of later date, the extreme simplicity of the dresses of to-day has reduced the work of dressmaking to its lowest possible terms. Trimming is so often in the form of effective but bold, easily executed embroidery, braiding, etc., for which you get the newest French designs in Needle-Art, the special Butterick publication on this subject. The Delineator, Butterick Fashions and the Butterick Fashion Sheet illustrate the latest French way of using the new trimmings and the little finishing touches that give a dress a Parisian look.
The object of this book is to enable a woman to make her clothes with the same perfection of finish, the same attention to detail that she would receive in the atelier of a French dressmaker or in the workrooms of a Fifth Avenue establishment.
The success of a dress depends on four things: style, material, construction and finish.
THE first is line or style. This you get from Butterick Patterns, which give you French fashions adapted to the needs of well-dressed American women. It does not give you conspicuous, ephemeral extremes. For example, when the French mannikins wore dresses which reached just below the knees at the same time that certain American manufacturers of ready-made clothes were making the very long lead-pencil skirt, Butterick Patterns kept to the smart conservative length of skirt used by the best-dressed Parisians and New York women. You can absolutely rely on the styles given you in Butterick Patterns.
An interesting collection of the latest Paris and New York fashions appears each month in The Delineator and Butterick Fashion Sheet, and at the beginning of each season in Butterick Fashions. You get every phase of the new fashions including the Parisian conception of the French modes as sketched from the models of Worth, ​Paquin, Poiret, Doucet, etc., to the simple practical versions prepared for American women.
SECOND, the materials and colors which change every season stamp a dress with its year mark. The new materials which are suitable for your dress, blouse, suit, etc., are given on the Butterick Pattern envelope. This information is also given every month in the Delineator and every season in Butterick Fashions, where you see the actual colors and color combinations on the color pages.
IN THE third place, your dress must be cut and put together and finished with professional skill and precision.
THE DELTOR, the very wonderful complement of the Butterick Pattern, shows you in pictures how to cut the garment and put it together and tells you how it should be finished. The Deltor shows you in its Illustrated Layouts exactly how to place each size of each version of the pattern on material of every suitable width. The Layouts show how the pieces of the pattern can be laid out so as to use the least possible amount of material to give the right style effect. If it is necessary to fold the material the Layouts show where to fold it so that it will cut without waste. With the Deltor it is possible to give what is known as "trick-lays"—that is, layouts planned by expert cutters, which save an eighth, a quarter or half a yard of material over the layout that a woman could plan for herself. With an inexpensive material these "trick-lays" save the price of a pattern, while with expensive material the saving amounts to two, four, six dollars or even more. With the saving made possible by the Deltor the pattern itself costs nothing.
The Layouts give the correct position for each piece of the pattern in relation to the selvedge so that it will be cut on the right grain of the fabric. If a garment is cut on the wrong grain it will have a bad style effect.
The Illustrated Layouts save the woman the work of planning the cutting of her material. She simply copies in five minutes a layout that is the result of several hours' work on the part of an expert. It saves her time and gives her the benefit of an expert cutter's knowledge of grains and cutting lines.
The Butterick Illustrated Instructions are a series of pictures which show you how to cut and put your dress together step by step. For example, in making a skirt the first picture will show you just how to put the pieces together, match the notches and just where to baste the seams. Another picture shows you how to make the inside belt down to the last hook. Still another puts the skirt on the belt for you. There is no possibility of misunderstanding. You don't have to read directions—you simply follow the pictures. The Butterick Pattern is the only pattern in the world that has this remarkable picture guide. It isn't necessary to know anything about dressmaking when you have the Deltor. A beginner can drape the most elaborate skirt or put together a tailored coat as expertly as a dressmaker or a tailor, for the simple reason that highly skilled professionals show her each step in the illustrations. They show you how to make clothes by pictures in the same easy, absorbing way that a movie tells you the story of the play.
IN THE fourth place, your dress must have the correct finishing touches which are so characteristic of the French gown. All women dread the "home-made look." It is always traceable to one of two things. Either a woman does not know how to finish her dress smartly or she is unwilling to spend the proper time in doing so. You can not get something for nothing. You can get the equivalent of a French dress by substituting your own work for the price that you would pay a French dressmaker if you supply yourself with the same information possessed by the French dressmaker. The Deltor will tell you just what kind of finish to use at every point and The New Dressmaker will show you how these finishes are done. This book will give you every possible phase of finishing every type of garment. It is given in a simple, fully illustrated form that a beginner can follow without the slightest difficulty. But nevertheless it represents the methods used by the great French dressmaking houses, the best English tailors and the fashionable Fifth Avenue establishments. For that reason it will be invaluable to the madame who is ambitious for the success of her business and to the home dressmaker who can not afford to go to the madame.