All AboutPattern Making

Editor’s Note: Vincent Scassellati , designer, cutter and draper at Kansas City Costume Co. in Kansas City, Missouri, will be presenting a session on pattern making and draping at the 2019 NCA Conference. In this interview, edited slightly for clarity, Scassellati shares some tips he’ll elaborate on in his presentation. The Costumer: What is your background in costuming? Where did you learn and perfect your pattern making and draping skills?

Vincent Scassellati : I have a BA in English Literature and a Masters in Theatre with an emphasis in costume design. After

graduation, I did a couple semesters teaching and worked at UMKC [The University of Missouri-Kansas City] as the lead designer of the costume area in the theatre department. I was going to be working on design and not construction, but I was fortunate enough to have someone volunteer who was an extraordinary stitcher and pattern maker, and I learned the

fundamentals of pattern making from her. Then I continued to pattern, to read up on it…and I continued working on pattern making on my own. I took a job a Kansas City Costume Co. 20-plus years ago and I’m still here.

costume should look like.”

The Costumer: Why is pattern making so important? Scassellati : A pattern maker and cutter help realize the vision of the designer. How does this costume work with the vision of the designer? If possible, a pattern maker should have independent conversations with the designer about his or her expectations of what the costume should look like. Then the pattern maker can supplement that vision with his or her own vision of what the costume ultimately should look like. The important thing is that you are dealing in lines and seams and darts. Where you put those features can augment a figure that needs augmenting, or make someone look wider in the chest, or look slimmer in the waist. Scassellati : One of the biggest problems is taking exact, proper measurements. That is always a big sticking point with a pattern maker! It is much better to get exact measurements instead of going from a set of measurements you’ve been given and then finding out that they are two to three inches off. That makes an extraordinary difference in where seams and darts go, so it changes the whole map of the bodice if you have to change something that much. It would be optimal if an actor could come to meet with the pattern maker, but that’s not always possible. Designers, pattern makers and drapers often must get measurements from an actor’s past performance.

The Costumer: What are some tips you have for costumers interested in improving their pattern making skills?

Scassellati : You have to understand technical things like how many darts you need in a costume. And I think costumers need to do more research into period costuming and period clothing. Finding information is easier now than it has ever been— for example, there are a lot more museums doing clothing now—but people don’t do enough of it.

Take a look at clothing from 1910 and see where the seams are, look at actual garments, read books and articles, look

at pictures of the inside of garments and think, “Why is

this line here, that seam there?” There needs to be some adaptation so the costumes fit today’s modern figures—some period costumes, for example, got their shape from heavy corsetry and the amount of corsetry today isn’t what is was in the 18th century. But if you don’t do those things and ask those questions, you’ll end up with [nothing more than] a modern adaptation of a period costume or dress. That is something you have to be most careful about.

For more information about Vincent Scassellati and his experience in costume making, see the profile that starts on page 11.

Kathleen Furore is the editor of The Costumer.