Skirts are one of the simplest and most versatile patterns there are, so welcome to Drafting Skirts 101. The base is really easy to draft and it can be modified in a million ways. Patterns can be combined, altered, made longer, shorter, etc. Let me teach you how to draft the skirt of your dreams!
Let’s start from the beginning. A skirt design can be dissected in the following ways.
So now that we know these basic things, let’s look into them more closely.
As we said before, there are 3 different skirt foundations, The Square, the Basic and the Circle. Each of these foundations has its own pros and cons and can be used for different designs, let’s take a look.
The square foundation is the most basic one when drafting skirts. Just draw a rectangle that with your desired length and your waist measurement as the width.
This pattern doesn’t give you much shaping around the waist, but is the best one if you want to add gathers or pleats. Some typical designs that use this foundation are: Tiered skirts, Layered skirts, Gathered skirts and Pleated skirts.
In each of these skirt designs, you can play around with the fullness of the skirt by adding more or less gathers or by choosing different styles of pleats. There is more styles of pleats but they combine other foundations, like the Sunburst pleats which are pleats on a circle skirt.
The basic foundation is the one all the books come with. It resembles the rectangular one but adds some shaping around the waist by adding curves and darts.
Most designs are based off of this basic pattern: Straight skirts, A-line skirts, Pencil or Pegged skirts, Bell or Mermaid skirts, tulip skirts, Cowl skirts or Wrap/Sarong skirts.
For these designs you can also play with the waistlines and the lengths. As for the fullness, it is normally standardised depending on which design you are more interested in, but you can always add gathers or pleats instead of darts.
The circle foundation needs some mathematics but it is fairly simple to draft and the final result looks gorgeous when dancing.
The designs that use this foundation play with the length and with the fullness. We have designs like: Full circle skirt, 3/4 circle skirt, Half circle skirt and 1/4 circle skirt. These are the basic ones but you can make the circle as big as you want.
On the other side we also have designs like: the Bubble skirt, high-low sikrt and the Handkerchief. This last design is actually composed of two squares instead of circles to create the uneven edges.
The Add-ons are things you can change in your skirt to make it unique. These are things like adding volume, pleats, cowls, slits and more. In this section we introduce the most common add-on designs.
This refers to the top of the skirt when it’s a separate shaped pattern piece. When drafting skirts use this piece to help us shape the pattern around the waist, create fun designs and is also useful to eliminate darts.
To pattern it, mark the shape of the yoke on your foundation, remove any darts and redraw the curves if needed.
A gore is a triangular or a trapezoidal piece that can be used to add shaping to the garment. For skirts, we use them as a divider so we can get rid of darts, fit the garment to the body or add extra flare between gores.
This technique is mostly used with the basic pattern, but it can be used with every foundation.
Godets are an extra piece of fabric added to the garment used to add extra flare. They can be added as extra pieces or between gores and can have any shape you want.
To pattern them, mark them on your foundation, separate the piece and cut and spread through the pattern to add ease
Peplums are basically a single tier that can complete a garment. They can be seen as really short skirts or as an extension of some shirts.
Like we’ve seen with skirts, they can have multiple shapes. For example the top part of a basic foundation, or perhaps any variation of the circle blocks. Just have fun and add as much fullness as you need.
Pleats are a way to add volume to the bottom of the pattern. There are multiple pleat types but the ones shown here are the most typical ones.
Their patterns are very similar but they are all sewn in different ways. For more information on them, check specific designs.
This is another technique of adding volume to the pattern but this time as gathers. This means that the volume can be added to either top and bottom of the pattern, or both.
To pattern it separate the foundation in pieces and add as much ease as you want in between.
All these styles can be combined to create any design you want. They can be asymmetrical, use two different foundations plus an add on, have fun and play around with skirt styles
There is always a lot of confusion when talking about darts. Should there be one, two, none? How long should they be? And how wide? Well, I wish the explanation was easy but it’s not! Darts are a way to create 3D shapes on a 2D surface. All our bodies are different so it’s impossible to find a dart method that suits everyone.
If you take me for example, I have a flat stomach and a round buttocks. This means that if I add darts on my front pattern, this will create a round shape that my body cannot fill, which will translate into extra fabric and wrinkles. The same way, if I have no darts on my back pattern, there will be no space for my buttocks. And if you add two darts, there will be too much shaping and wrinkles, so one dart is my lucky number. As a summary, all my foundations have exactly the same amount of darts: Zero at the front and one at the back. So despite what the pattern asks for, this is what I always go for.
The same stands for how wide and how long the darts should be. You’ll have to investigate through trial and error. In general, darts should point towards the fullest part and finish some centimetres before that point.
Darts are not only useful but they can be used as a design feature. You can transfer them around the waist to create intricate designs.
Every skirt needs a way to stay in place, whether it is by attaching it to a top and making it into a dress or adding a waistband. In this section we introduce where and how to add waistbands to the design.
Most books define 3 main levels:
Remember that these are the main levels but you can make the waistline as high or as low as you want. These should be used as a guideline on how to modify the foundation to go above or below the natural waist.
Once you have defined the waist line, you can choose the type of waist band. There are 3 types of waist bands:
Which one you’ll choose depends on the body shape, your skirt design or how high or low the waistband sits on the body.
Once the foundations are clear, it’s time to define how long the skirt is going to be. There are 8 official length variations and these are:
When drafting these designs you can use the foundation of your choosing. Be aware that these are the official lengths but you can always play around and make them shorter or longer.
This is a working document and I will keep adding to it the more I learn, so keep it saved! If you want to know more on how to draft skirt patterns, techniques or similar, take a look at the posts below and have fun.
If you want to start your own Skirt drafting journey, here you have the drafting instructions for each of the foundations. The rectangle foundation is not included as the pattern will change depending on what type of volume you want to add. For those designs check the section below.
