The Overlooked Measurement: The High Bust

Video Transcript

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This is Didi - dressmaker's dummy. Her bust measurement is 37 and 13/16 of an inch or 96cm, and her waist is 29 and one eighth of an inch or 74cm. This is a body cast I had made of myself in 2010, made directly from my body. At the time it was an extremely accurate representation of my body, but since my body measurements are now different - I have put on a significant amount of weight -

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for this tutorial, I'm going to call this body cast Enid. Enid's bust measurement is also 37 and 13/16 of an inch or 96cm, which is the same as Didi’s, and her waist is 28.75in or 73cm, which is very similar to Didi’s. Only slightly smaller. So going by the bust and waist measurements, you might think that the bodies would be the same size.

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But as you hopefully can see, the basic shapes of these two bodies are very different, which is also reflected in the very different shapes of their custom bodice blocks shown here.

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Patterns made for one of these figures are going to be problematic for the other.

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Hi, my name is Maria and in this video I want to explain why the high bust measurement is one of the most overlooked measurements in patternmaking,

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And why ignoring it or not knowing what it is, can cause major fitting problems or make it hard to fix the existing issues because you don't understand them. So back to Didi and Enid. One of the major differences is this: Didi’s high bust measurement is 37 and 13/16 of an inch or 96cm

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Enid’s high bust measurement is 34.25in or 87cm.

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There is also a difference in the low bust or under bust measurement, but I won't go into that in this video because differences in the low bust or the under bust are not usually reflected in the block.

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they generally become relevant later when drafting styles that include contouring. So why am I focusing on the high bust measurement?

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Because in sewing and patternmaking it is completely overlooked.

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And when I say overlooked, I mean genuinely overlooked. I'll give you 4 examples. Example number one, before I purchased Didi, I emailed the supplier and asked if they could tell me what the high bust measurement would be for the body form with a bust of 37 and 13/16 of an inch or 96cm. Their reply was: “What is the high bust measurement?”

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Example number two. Later on, a few years later, I looked into getting another custom body form made for myself. The company offered forms made to custom measurements, but their measurement chart did not include the high bust. When I asked about the high bust measurement, their reply was: “What is the high bust measurement?” When I told them what the high bust measurement was, or more correctly, where the high bust measurement is taken, the end result was no, not really.

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They couldn't create a body form that included both my high bust and my bust measurement.

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Example number three. I've also seen “custom pattern” websites where you can choose standard sizes, or you can enter your custom measurements for them to generate a pattern to your exact measurements. But the high bust measurement isn't one of those included on the list of measurements that they use to create your “custom pattern”.

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Example number four. I tried two different phone apps where you take a number of photos of yourself.

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They could generate a 3D model from those photos and then they could provide you with your exact measurements. Neither one of those included the high bust measurement in the measurements they provided.

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Now here's the thing. Even when the high bust measurement isn't stated, it obviously still exists. Every person has one. Every body form has one. Every pattern has one. Every 3D model has one. It's simply being assumed in some cases and ignored or overlooked in others. Usually in standard pattern making, the assumption is that the high bust measurement is approximately 5cm or 2in smaller than the full bust circumference.

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If the high bust measurement in the body form or the block is significantly different from your own body, the resulting garment is unlikely to fit correctly.

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the high bust generally governs the fit of the upper bodice, including the shoulder, armholes, and upper chest area, as well as the bust cup. The angle from the high bust to the bust determines a good fit for your bust, and if the high bust is wrong, then the side seam angle and therefore the bust fit will be wrong.

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And to be clear, the pattern making bust cup is not the same thing as a bra bust cup. So, as I've already mentioned in standard pattern making system, the standard figure is generally based on a B cup proportion, meaning that the high bust is assumed to be 5cm or 2in smaller than the full bust. But technically it's a little bit more complicated than that because to get a really good fit.

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The arcs of the bodice - so separating the high bust circumference and the bust circumference into the front and back arcs.

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Need to be taken into account to get a good fit. But as a general rule, that two inch difference is the standard assumption. Important note Although Didi is theoretically a standard figure, she isn't quite standard,

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I'll cover that a little bit later..

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So why is the high bust measurement ignored?

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A large part of the answer comes down to mass production.

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For mass produced clothing to be profitable. Manufacturers can only produce a limited range of sizes.

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That means they need to start with a single base shape, and then grade that shape up and down into different sizes. They cannot realistically create an entirely separate size range for every single bust proportion. Historically, most pattern making systems and commercial sewing patterns were therefore developed around what was considered a standard bust proportion, which was, at least in the West, a B cup proportion.

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If your body roughly matches that proportion, the resulting block will often fit reasonably well. But if your proportions differ significantly from that assumption, fitting problems can start appearing very quickly. Because even though the high bust measurement may not be written down explicitly, it is still built into the shape of the block.

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So the problem for nonstandard figures

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If your high bust is significantly smaller than your full bust, the standard B bust cup assumption measurement results in too much ease at the upper chest and underarm area. This often shows up as gaping armholes and poor shoulder and armhole fit.

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and what could be confusing - tightness across the bust, even though it is supposedly made for your bust circumference.

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you've chosen it according to your bust measurement, and it's still tight in the bust. But the greater the difference between your high bust and full bust, the more pronounced these problems can become.

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The traditional solution is draft the standard B bust cut block first then perform a large bust adjustment. And to be fair, that approach can work.

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It depends on your figure proportions. But if the original block already contains too much width at the high bust and underarm area, the large bust adjustment just then introduces additional fitting problem. I call this the “Large Bust Adjustment Gotcha”. I'll discuss that in a separate upcoming video.

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But this is the key point. If we base the block on the actual high bust measurement instead of the assumed high bust measurement, then we can use the full bust measurements separately to create the correct side seam angle and therefore correct pattern making bust cup for each individual. So we can get a better fit for everyone. In other words, instead of forcing every figure into the standard B-cup framework and correcting it afterwards, we can build the bust cup shaping directly into the block making process itself.

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so defining the high bust. So what is or where exactly is the high bust? The high bust, sometimes called the upper bust, is the measurement around the upper chest and under the arms.

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If you imagine wearing a fitted shirt with sleeves, the high bust measurement sits roughly at the level of the underarm. However, the underarm on the shirt is lowered from the body for comfort and ease, so the actual body measurement is up right against the underarm.

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So these images show the high bust on Didi and Enid.

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Even though both bodies have the same full bust measurement, their high bust measurements and therefore their upper body proportions are very different.

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and this is one reason why two people with the same bust measurement can require completely different pattern shaping. Traditionally, cup sizes in pattern making that are based on the difference between the high bust and the full bust.

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Give the following definition for the cup sizes.

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One inch difference is an A-cup. Two inches difference is a B cup, Three inches a C cup. Four inches a D cup, Five inches a double D or E cup, and six inches triple D or F cup. Although in practice I eventually found that using only the total circumference isn't precise enough for a good fit for everyone.

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I found it worked much better to use the individual front and back arcs separately.

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the bust arcs, and the high bust arcs.

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An example of why that is so important is Didi. Although she has the same high bust and bust measurements, she still has a bust and a bust cup.

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So using the traditional definition she will not have a bust cup

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Using the high bust and the bust arcs do result in the correct shape for her pattern, and that results in a bust cup that is somewhere between an A and B.

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So I created my own system based on the high bust.

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now. Many people are perfectly happy using the traditional approach. Draft the standard block, then perform the necessary adjustments. And if the bust cup issue is the only fitting issue, that may be completely reasonable.

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But when you have a figure that differs from the standard in multiple ways, the fitting process becomes much more complicated. You may be dealing with not only bust cup differences, but shoulder slope differences rounded upper back, sway back,

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Forward shoulders, and all of those things interact with one another. And at that point, trying to work out which fitting issue is causing which problem can become extremely confusing. And beyond the ability of a lot of people. It was definitely beyond my ability when I was first trying to draft my own block. So for many years I tried numerous drafting systems with very mixed results.

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Eventually, I realized I did not simply want a block that fitted me. I wanted to understand why these problems were happening,

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and I wanted to create a drafting system that addressed the issue directly, instead of relying on extensive alterations afterwards. So I began developing my own system based around the high bust measurement.

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It took me several years of testing, refining, and redrafting, but eventually I developed a method that worked far better for nonstandard figures.

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So if you've struggled with bodice fitting it, commercial patterns never seem quite right.

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If you've wondered why adjustments often seem to create new problems instead of solving them, there's a good chance that the high bust measurement is part of the story. The important thing to understand is that these fitting problems are often not caused by you doing something wrong. Very often, they are the result of starting with a system that quietly assumes a different body shape.

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And once you understand those assumptions, a lot of fitting problems suddenly begin to make much more sense. In future videos, I'll go into more detail about why the large bust adjustment can sometimes fail,

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and what amount of ease is the correct amount of ease at the high bust?

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But for now, hopefully this video has helped explain why the high bust measurement is far more important than most people realize.

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And this brings us right back to Didi and Enid at the start of the video. Even though they have the same bust measurement, the overall shape of the upper body is very different. So if you generally have fitting problems because of a proportionally smaller high bust and you are wanting to buy a dressmaker's dummy,

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It often makes more sense to buy a mannequin that matches your high bust measurement and then pad out the bust,

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Because the shape of the shoulders, chest, and armholes is governed far more by the high bust than the full bust measurement.

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Difficulty, of course, is that many mannequin companies don't provide the high bust measurement at all. Because just like much of the sewing industry, they often overlook how important it really is if they even know what it is. So that's the end of this video. It's ciao from me.