“The Mary Brooks Picken Method Of Modern Dressmaking” is a complete guide to tailoring, originally written with the amateur in mind. With simple, step-by-step instructions and helpful illustrations and photographs, this classic handbook will be of considerable utility to modern readers with an interest in traditional dressmaking. Contents include: “Dressmaking and Tailoring”, “Modern Methods Make Dressmaking Easy”, “Threads, Needles, Sewing Tools”, “Using Your Sewing Machine”, “How to Handle Fabrics Successfully”, “How to Make Seams and Finishes”, “Essential Needle Stitches and Seams”, “Making Seams in Garments”, “The Art of Tailoring Seams”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction on dressmaking and tailoring.

This fourth edition of Metric Pattern Cutting for Children's Wear and Babywear remains the standard text book but has three major improvements. First, the sections have been re-organised to reflect changes in producing and marketing children's clothes. Today's popularity of easy-fitting styles and knitted fabrics means that basic 'flat' pattern cutting is used to construct the majority of children's wear and babywear and this type of cutting is therefore emphasised in this new edition. Shaped blocks and garments, cut to fit the body form, are still included, and are placed in chapters covering some school uniform garments or more expensive fashion or formal clothes. The book now clearly separates the sections useful to student beginners (Parts One, Two and Three), and also offers more advanced or specialist sections for students who wish to pursue a career in children's wear or for designers working in the different manufacturing sectors of the trade. The second change in this fourth edition is the introduction of colour coding to the sections; this makes it easier to identify specific processes in the book and enhances the illustrations. Finally, the size charts have been revised to reflect the changes in body sizing. The clear division of the boys' and girls' measurements in the charts has been in response to the way clothes are marketed and to co-ordinate with European size charts. 'Plus' charts for heavier children have also been added.

Presents essays, advice, and projects for each month of the year.

"A tribute to a time when style -- and maybe even life -- felt more straightforward, and however arbitrary, there were definitive answers." -- Sadie Stein, Paris Review As a glance down any street in America quickly reveals, American women have forgotten how to dress. We lack the fashion know-how we need to dress professionally and beautifully. In The Lost Art of Dress, historian and dressmaker Linda Przybyszewski reveals that this wasn't always true. In the first half of the twentieth century, a remarkable group of women -- the so-called Dress Doctors -- taught American women that knowledge, not money, was key to a beautiful wardrobe. They empowered women to design, make, and choose clothing for both the workplace and the home. Armed with the Dress Doctors' simple design principles -- harmony, proportion, balance, rhythm, emphasis -- modern American women from all classes learned to dress for all occasions in ways that made them confident, engaged members of society. A captivating and beautifully illustrated look at the world of the Dress Doctors, The Lost Art of Dress introduces a new audience to their timeless rules of fashion and beauty -- rules which, with a little help, we can certainly learn again.

In 1924, author Mary Brooks Picken perfected her method of creating sixteen different dress styles while serving as Director of Instruction at the Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts & Sciences. Detailed, numbered illustrations take the reader through ten simple steps to creating an almost infinite variety of dresses.