Drape tutorial?

Maybe the reason it's hard for so many people to identify or define 'drape' is because it's really not such a big deal. When done well, I think the effect is very subtle. Jeffreyd's drape jacket is not perfect, but its faults are not due to it's drapiness--at least, to me eyes. I doubt anybody outside a pointed discussion on the subject would notice that it has 'drape' at all. I'm sorry I ever mentioned drape with respect to my own clothes as I feel I've contributed some to the ongoing controversy. Iammatt's Rubinacci jackets are as drapey as mine and far more prolific on the forums, but nobody fixates on the fact that they have drape. I imagine that is because he didn't emphasize it so much in discussion. At any rate, for me, whether a jacket has drape doesn't make or break it.

Also, with no disrespect intended toward our tailor denizens, I imagine every tailor has his own personal preferences and biases. It is not surprising that a talented tailor like Despos would decidely dislike drape, but I doubt he would ever claim that his opinion should be taken as monolithic and absolute.

Only my opinions should be taken as monolithic and absolute.

I have a great long piece written by Bruce Boyer around 1989 or '90 that goes into this in the greatest amount detail ever, but I don't want to post it without his permission.

Originally Posted by Manton

Click to expand...

I have a great long piece written by Bruce Boyer around 1989 or '90 that goes into this in the greatest amount detail ever, but I don't want to post it without his permission.

If you do, he is a professional and should be paid.

The currency that I suggest is bonus StyleForvm post counts: let's say, one post per word.


- B

Originally Posted by mafoofan

Click to expand...

I'm sorry I ever mentioned drape with respect to my own clothes as I feel I've contributed some to the ongoing controversy.

I blame your prominence entirely for this conflagration.

Well done.


- B

Not sure which is worse, this or the Moo coming to NY threak. Both are relatively vomit inducing.

Originally Posted by edmorel

Click to expand...

Not sure which is worse, this or the Moo coming to NY threak. Both are relatively vomit inducing.

When are you taking your vacation in the UWS?

Will you take one of those electronic translators?


- B

It should be clarified that there is a difference between drape and the drape cut. The drape cut of the 1930-40s (which I call the drape era) was as I described, drape in chest (and back too) with the fullness extending into the trousers. Jeffreyd's drape coat is more in the family of the archetypal drape cut that you see in old films and fashion plates. I actually thought he had added extra waist suppression to it, because it looked quite waisted. It turns out he had cut it as Whife proscribed, with added ease to the waist compared to his fitted coat. It just looks waistier because of the drape in the chest/back. If Jeffrey had cut this coat close to the waist it would have given it an extreme hourglass shape, to a degree I have never seen on any coat worn by any forum member. Drape can also be added locally. For example, you can just add it to the back - and nowhere else. I would not call this the full on traditional "drape cut". There are also degrees of drape, and you can just add a modest degree to back and/or chest. Although some of you may claim that your coats have a full drape effect in the chest and a tight waist, I doubt it, because your coats would have a much more dramatically feminine hourglass silhouette if that were the case (unless you have a beer gut ). On a well proportioned or slender figure, if you cut the waist close, you will need to moderate the drape in the chest/back to compensate to avoid that. Whatever the case, it's not necessary to resort to using this dated tailoring technique to get a full chested effect on a coat, unless you're some Fedora Lounge type striving to look like Special Agent Eliot Ness in the Untouchables.

I don't dislike drape, just use it judiciously on certain body types.
I have been trying to define drape. There are two examples I can picture.

Imagine the vertical roll in draperies. That is what a soft constructed chest would look like on a man wearing a draped cut. You would see more than one gentle vertical roll from the armhole towards the center front. The roll would form at the center of the chest and roll downward toward the waist line. The amount of roll would vary by how much drape is wanted. If the chest was more structured you would see one large roll closer to the point the jacket sleeve and chest/body meet.
Some men need this effect, some don't. Some men favor this effect for style, some don't.

The comfort issue is very subjective. A draped chest is wider from the breakline of the lapel to the armhole. This extends the cloth in the chest over the natural pivot point, where your arm meets your body, and positions the excess cloth and armhole more onto the arm. This is not comfortable to me. That is why I personally do not wear it, or prefer this aesthetic.
It is what it is. Appreciated by some, disliked by others.

Since the definition of drape is bascially "full chest" I am left wondering what are these other methods and how they differ. If it is simply a matter of putting in a hard canvas and ballooning the chest outward -- then, yes, I can see how that would be different.

However, that is not a matter of "dated" v. modern, since both styles have been done for decades, and both continue to be done today.

As for the tight waist, I don't think any of us has or wants that. What I have said is that the notion (which by the way you have shifted on, Sator) that draped coats have no waist (position #1) or that the waist is simply a funciton of the excess chest and not of any shaping at the side seams or in the darts (position #2) is false.

Originally Posted by Sator

Click to expand...

Whatever the case, it's not necessary to resort to using this dated tailoring technique to get a full chested effect on a coat, unless you're some of Fedora Lounge type striving to look like Special Agent Eliot Ness in the Untouchables.

I prefer to joke around...but not all the time.

You were doing sorta okay in the first phrase, but the second phrase is just pure baiting.

Also, do you understand that you are directly insulting people? I am not sure that you get that part. It undermines what you are trying to describe in terms of the historical origins and development of how drape is used in tailoring.

In just a few brief responses, you've described men wearing A&S, Rubinacci, Solito, Steed, etc. essentially as nostalgists wearing poorly constructed garments. While that might very well be true, you should consider that those characteristics might not distinguish what you wear yourself from what you decry. I am talking about both the nostalgist part and the poorly made part.

To put this another way, the photographs that I have seen of what you wear do not impress me as being obviously superior in style or construction than what many other men wear, including men who wear A&S, Rubinacci, Solito, and the other bespoke makers of softly tailored, draped garments. Perhaps if I saw you in person, I would be impressed, but that is what I see.

A man who delights in inhabiting the apex of his personal preferences is one thing; one who believes he is at the top of pyramid of all men is quite another.

Your tastes and beliefs about clothes are very idiosyncratic and antiquarian...and those of us who like and appreciate you value you for those reasons, and for the vast energy that you put into understanding and sharing many aspects of sartorial history.

But, you should stop short of accusing whole genres of tailors of being crap. It throws a fog on the rest of what you trying to say.


- B

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

Click to expand...

Also, do you understand that you are directly insulting people? I am not sure that you get that part.

He gets it.

Sator was always odd, but he did not used to be quite like this. I used to enjoy bantering with him about heavy cloth and tweeds on the beach and that other sort of stuff he posted, I assumed as a gag. At least in part.

But at some point he turned militant and lost any sense of humor or irony. He used to recognize (I think) that his own tastes were rare and out of the mainstream, even among aficionados who are already out of the mainstream. But for a long time he has simply been on a crusade. To do what, exactly, I don't really know.

Drape can be described as a full chest, and it is, but it is also more than that. The method of constructing the chest in the canvass will be crucial in how drape is executed and expressed in a garment. The body/firmness of the material used as a chest piece or the absence of any chest piece will impact the effect. The method of cutting this piece, how you use the warp and the weft, combined with the weight and nature of the cloth will all play a part in how the drape is expressed.
Fred Astaire wore very soft jackets with drape. Desi Arnaz wore draped jackets but they look structured, not soft.

The gist of these threads change must faster than I can think and type.

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

Click to expand...

When are you taking your vacation in the UWS?

Will you take one of those electronic translators?


- B

Next week, wearing one of my new drape coats, hope not to get any schmaltz on it.

I don't think there can be drape with a hard chestpiece. The chestpiece will prevent "drape" from occuring.

So it is more accurate to say that drape = a full chest with a soft canvas, and the fronts and scye cut in such a way that the fullness in the chest "breaks" or rolls or folds, literally like a drape hanging in front of a window.

This can be done with a high or low, stiff or soft, shoulder.