Hi.
(As usual: A few nights' sleep show me errors in my initial thoughts... Which is why I corrected this post!)
As threatened before: I would like to pick your brains regarding some issues I encountered during the first fitting yesterday:
My best mate's measurements: 72" height, 45" chest, 43" waist, 44" seat.
He is kind of bulky, but no pronounced chest - his belly starts at the sternum and continues down to the lower parts in a rather straight line - so it's not the rather typical "**** belly", which starts furter down, below the stomach and tends to be more rounded.
I drafted the pattern accordingly (2" drop portly), ending up with:
Chest: 47 3/4"
45 1/4" waist
50 3/4" seat => which is too much, but that'll be rather easy to fix.
Issues I saw during the fitting:
front balance is off, as the hem of the back is level, but the hems of the front parts rise up towards the center. (Seen from the sides)
Both shoulders are considerably lower at the shoulder points, roughly 1" on both front and back shoulder points (!)
His right shoulder is lower at the neck point too, icluding a slight "roll", seemingly needing some adjustment (1/2"drop) at the back neck point to move the seam a bit back.
Adjusting each point separately would mean:
dropping the front neck points by 1/2" to correct the front balance issue
dropping all 4 shoulder points (front & back, left & right) by 1/2" to fix the hanging shoulders
dropping back neck right ~ 2/8 to fix the hanging shoulder right side
dropping the neck points would correct the ********** of the bottom front parts, but not the overall front balance
raising the front neck and shoulder points correct the front balance, but could have a negative influence on the ********** of the front parts - basically cancelling point 1 out.
So, effectively I will have to find a balance between 1 and 2, correcting the front balance, without increasing the ********** effect for the bottom of the fron parts.
But: combining #1 and #2 would mean I drop the complete forepart by 1/2", effectively eliminating the expected result from #1?!
Pulling up the outer shoulders further could help (increasing to 1" for instance) - but 1" is a lot of cloth.
Additionally, what I was pondering about during the day:
The issue which still keeps me pondering: What if my usual placement of the first button and the additional 2 3/4" around the chest cause the coat to get "stuck" there, stopping the front from hanging down?
Questions! So many questions!
What would you advise?
Cheers!
JK
If you have seen the videos on drafting the corpulent pattern you'll know that there is a very easy way of reducing the seat at the side-body seam.
The corpulent cut is also hugely important when getting the fit right, as it cleans up the side-seam.
Front balance can be an issue on big guys, generally it needs to be longer, in some cases as much as inch.
As the shoulder gets wider the slope increases, roughly a 1/4" for every inch. So you might be used to a shoulder slope of 2 1/2 and find that it's 3" or more on a corpulent.