Made my own trousers, pictures inside

[tld9v1]

Made my own trousers. Thought I would post some pictures.

Have to make some fixes to the fly and waistband for the next iteration but other than that I am pretty happy with my pattern.

Comments and criticism welcome.

 

[An Acute Style]

They look pretty great for a first go. How long did it take you to make them? You should document the process.

 

[tld9v1]

The sewing took about 10 hours I think.

Learning how to draft the pattern took several months.

 

[deadAngle]

Fantastic drape and fit, nice work. Might I suggest moving the buttons of the fly a little closer to the edge so the bottom placket is covered when the fly is pulled taut?

 

[Camilo]

How enterprising of you. Great job, looks good to me. I would like to hear about your process too.

 

[Holdfast]

Pretty damn excellent, especially if that's the first completed pair you've made. I lack the patience, dedication & skill to contemplate doing anything remotely like this; kudos to you for doing it!

One thing entirely unrelated to the cut/manufacture of the trousers is that I have a personal bugbear about sheer/see-through fabrics, such that the pockets/etc outline are visible. It's an individual thing, though; as long as you're OK with it, cool.

 

[tld9v1]

Fantastic drape and fit, nice work. Might I suggest moving the buttons of the fly a little closer to the edge so the bottom placket is covered when the fly is pulled taut?

Thanks!

Yep, see first post. That's the plan.

How enterprising of you. Great job, looks good to me. I would like to hear about your process too.

Thanks!

I actually got tired of overpaying and getting underwhelming results from NYC tailors. Around the same time, stumbled upon the below two blogs and figured I could do a better job for less money than I was spending.

Taylor Tailor
Tutto Fatto A Mano

With respect to pattern making, I spent a lot of time reading the Cutter and Tailor forums to figure out how to draft patterns. It's a really great resource for indepth understanding of tailoring. You really don't see that level of discussion here on Styleforum to be honest.

With respect to sewing, after that I bought some books, most were not that helpful, I found Classic Tailoring Techniques was the best among them. That being said, I didn't find that books are not the best way to learn how to sew. I found the most effective thing was to just reverse engineer my existing garments, figure out how they were made, and made samples until I got it right. It's not that hard to be honest.

Pretty damn excellent, especially if that's the first completed pair you've made. I lack the patience, dedication & skill to contemplate doing anything remotely like this; kudos to you for doing it!

One thing entirely unrelated to the cut/manufacture of the trousers is that I have a personal bugbear about sheer/see-through fabrics, such that the pockets/etc outline are visible. It's an individual thing, though; as long as you're OK with it, cool.

Thanks!

This was cheap fabric, didn't want to use expensive wool on my first start to finish trousers incase I screwed them up, which I did. I'll be using high quality wood for the next pair.

 

[AwfullyNiceGuy]

This was cheap fabric, didn't want to use expensive wool on my first start to finish trousers incase I screwed them up, which I did. I'll be using high quality wood for the next pair.

This should be interesting!

Other than that, beautiful slacks!
I suppose it's not ''worth it'' from an economical standpoint(considering time spent and the learning curve), you'd have to enjoy the learning process and the fiddling for it to pay off - which it seems you did.
Mad props!

 

[tld9v1]



This should be interesting! 

Other than that, beautiful slacks!

I suppose it's not ''worth it'' from an economical standpoint(considering time spent and the learning curve), you'd have to enjoy the learning process and the fiddling for it to pay off - which it seems you did.

Mad props! 

I can't say if they are "worth it," or not for any particular individual.

I can tell you the cost for a pair of trousers won't exceed $200-$300 (for high quality wool) and it won't take you more than 10 hours to construct. For that cost you'll get a pair of trousers comparable to high end bespoke.

I'll probably make a few more pairs then move on to jackets as well.

 

[forex]

^^I think it looks great for a first try, I wish there was more shape. Maybe you can do it with some ironing? It drapes well but lacks shape, especially looking from the back. Instead of trying to make jackets, why not start with shirts and then move to jackets? I think jackets are a lot harder to make compared to trousers and shirts.

 

[Svenn]

What is that, white denim? I agree it looks like it needs some ironwork or somethn, which would be more obvious if it was made out of a more nimble wool. Rigid cottons do miracles in covering up tailoring flaws, which I'm worried made these results look better than they actually are.

But nonetheless, awesome job.

 

[marcodalondra]

Jackets needs proper training. With trousers and shirts you just work with the one fabric and it is only about the pattern. Jackets needs padding and interlining building as well as a lot of iron work...

I have done some reverse engeeniring on shirts some time ago and re-cut them almost completely and had the wife to sew them back together. It was a fun process but for the amount of time invested, and the value I give to my spare time, it is worth getting a professional to do it for me, so unless one wants to make a profession out of it or can wait to have something finishe months after starting , I personally would not go the DIY route

 

[Coburn]

Curious about the creating the pattern. Did you start with one of the basic patterns found on Cutter and Tailor?

 

[Carli]

Excellent work keep it up

 

[tld9v1]

Curious about the creating the pattern. Did you start with one of the basic patterns found on Cutter and Tailor?

I started out with the cutting system in "How to Make Men's Clothes" by Jane Rhinehart. After that I tried several different systems (including the Rundschau system) until I settled on Mansie Wauch's system. It's a pretty simple system that produces really good results.

Once I had the basic pattern drafted, I modified by fitting it on myself and then worked with a local pattern maker to iron out the quirks. With the help of a pattern maker, I was able to learn how to balance a pair of trousers so they fit correctly.

There are still a few issues with the pattern you see in the pictures. I plan to fix them next time around but I am pretty close to my final pattern at this point. I'll also probably wrap around and try the Rundschau system again now that I have a much better understanding of how to draft trousers.

Excellent work keep it up

Thanks!