BOSTON DESIGN LABORATORY™ Some information

The purpose for Boston Design Laboratory™ (BDL) is to redesign the fashion industry in Bos-ton through creative research of new production technologies and new business structures – in order that fashion design entrepreneurs and dressmakers can make a good income – increasingly more difficult in today’s markets. Our approach encompasses all aspects of the industry, collaborations in the ways the self-employed work together in creating solutions to problems. There are four divisions, determined by Shirley Willett, the founder, in a 2004 paper prepared for a Massachusetts Institute of Technology workshop to explain the future design of the fashion apparel industry. Information is collected in databases and other technologies for designer quality and efficiency at the Point of Design (POD-IT)

1) Creativity, Research & Resources.
Problem: Much creativity in the fashion apparel industry has been lost with the mechanization of CAD/CAM technology, which has opened up extensive copying and repetitions.
Future:. All BDL designers and dressmakers start with the Stylometrics Pattern Templates, researched by Shirley Willett in a series of National Science Foundation grants, for achieving more beautiful, creative shaping, quality fitting, and efficient production of one-of-a-kinds, small or big production lots. The system is highly efficient for development of creative ideas and can reduce necessity of copying and sameness.


2) Pattern Design & Engineering.
Problem: Commodity apparel is completely mechanized in CAD pattern systems for low-costs in design and production – while high fashion is too random and expensive, poor time management from design to market. Unfortunately, there is nothing in between.
Future: The Stylometrics system is structured so that while designing and making the first sample (prototype), the pattern is also ready for production. The Templates are ideal for easy manipulation of flat 2-D work, or for creative draping as on an armature in sculpture.

3) Production Engineering.
Problem: Sameness in product and processes give speed, efficiency and low-cost, but results in boring styles. Manufacturing in America of high fashion design is extremely limited and costly and non-existent for very unique ideas, small lots, one-of-a-kinds, or custom.
Future: It is integral to BDL’s mission to solve these problems through technical innovations linked to the Stylometrics system, which has a foundation of sameness upon which to build great creativity. BDL is working with the Professional Association of Custom Clothiers (PAAC) on “mass-produced custom”, and is proposing a “Boutique Production” concept.

4) Marketing, Selling & Customers.
Problem: Too many middling costs, and distortion of consumer desires from the distance between designers and consumers.
Future: Trunk shows, direct sales, and creative, collaborative marketing are integral parts of our research. Our dream is to make the customers an active part of the fashion industry, with a software program, “Self A-wear™” which will collect consumer desires, and a “Willett Design Room” (WDR) that can maintain the unique selling relationship.

Emma left a comment on the last post:

what are the styleometrics pattern templates? I am designing and making a modern wedding dress and was needing some help with how to make a pattern

Some of your question is answered above, but I realize not in any detail. If you live in the New England area, please contact me, and I can suggest some ways to help you with patterns. You can also read my website at http://www.shirleywillett.com You can also join the Boston Fashion Industry Meetup. Click http://fashion.meetup.com/1/

Draping a Dress from Stylometrics Pattern Template

The blue and white silk crepe dress is on me when I received a "Boston Fashion Week Ladder Award" sponsored by the Fashion Group International in September. It was for all my work to help young fashion entrepreneurs up the "ladder". The photo was tajen when I received a unique bouquet of roses from my fashion protégés at our Boston Design Lab fashion show.

In a post on 12.26.2006, "Drape Dress" I showed the design for this dress, and the AB-1 Empire Template on which the dress was draped. I added the big bow. All the darts and the empire line was transformed into draping, which is something I love to do. By draping from a Template the dress maintains a "standard" of sizing and shaping,the lack of which is a significant problem that consumers face, especially with haute couture from around the world.

I love comments and questions. If you have any about this process I will reply.

Sketch Pattern Shapes That Will Make This Volley Ball

The volley ball is pictured with two views. Try “sketching” the shapes of the pattern pieces - the FEWEST PATTERN PIECES - that it takes to cut the fabric pieces for sewing together to make the ball. The 2D “shape” is what is important, and the relationship of shape to each other pattern pieces.

So many have requested my “Fashion/Pattern Design for Beginners” online, that I decided to try this first step of a class I teach at the Brookline Adult & Community Education (Boston area). This first step is a test for whether my pattern making system can be taught online.
http://www.brooklineadulted.org/bin/catalog/bldCatalogPage.pl?Key=36&File=CraftsandSkills.txt
This is a very different approach from any other pattern making book, class, online, etc. It is a non-mathematical pattern making system called Stylometrics, that I developed through National Science Foundation research grants on engineering design for the fashion industry. The purpose of my system is "to build the ability to SEE inside the mind, and for designers to CREATE solutions to their pattern problems”. Most pattern makers use math & rules, set up in books, and answer the same problems over and over again – which is OK for mass production of commodity styles, and competition between designers and pattern makers, and CAD systems – but not for creative high fashion designers. It’s what Frank Gehry, the world-famous architect, said when he began designing jewelry for Tiffiny’s: “Beauty Without Rules”. My dream is to set up STANDARDS in “Primitive & Generic Patterns” so that designers can evolve "creative high fashion styles easily" and also mass produce them easily. From what I have learned from others, I believe I had the only “mass-produced high fashion clothing manufacturing in the world” in the 60s, 70s & early 80s. Eventually those standards will involve consumers and dressmakers, so consumers will be responsible for their own "fit" (variation from the standard) with their dressmakers. It's a whole new fashion industry.

S-PATTERNS Will Be a Part of the Future Technology Wave

First, I must apologize to all those to whom I said the 3 “Fashion/Pattern Design” classes for understanding how to work with the S-Patterns would be online by this past weekend. I’m sorry but it is going to longer to get it set up for the web. At this point we’re not sure, but maybe another week or two. Meanwhile we are continuing to develop the Primitive and Generic Patterns so they will be available for delivering to you.

(From the Boston Globe: "A modified iRobot Create can pick up a piece of paper. iRobot, unlike the Roomba, does not vacuum or clean.)

My “Chemise Theory” and Robotics today
Some of you, who have read my posts last September, might remember the one I wrote about my successful “chemise dress” I designed in 1957. (Click September in right column if you want to read the whole story.) The chemise was a fad, died and then was reincarnated as the “shift”, and has been a successful seller ever since for high fashion or commodity designers. Even more interesting is that the chemise is having a great high fashion comeback for spring, 2007. In all of my engineering design papers, related to my NSF research grants, I explained the story of the chemise dress, and used it as a social theory to explain how most fads rise, die, and come back again as more ubiquitous and not faddish. The primary example for which I used the chemise as analogy in the late 1980s was robotics, and I predicted its comeback. That is, robotics, at that time, was a “fad”, big in the media and everyone talked of the great things it would do for people at home. Robotics then died in the public eye, only being considered in robotic arms on factory floors.

For awhile I have been watching robotics making a slow comeback into importance, as I predicted, as the Roomba, vacuum cleaner. Now, it’s evolving. In yesterday’s Boston Globe, 1.8.07, “Technology clears a path for putting robots to work … emphasis is beginning to shift away from robots that entertain and towards robots that labor in the home and the office.” But, the most exciting and key aspect is the “development of a common platform like Create or Microsoft Robotics Studio that will allow hobbyists, students, and entrepreneurs to play around with creating robots without having to become an expert in every aspect of robotics. …software that allow people to use their products as a starting point to create something of their own….build on top of it and go further. …after finding that robot hobbyists were trying to customize the Roomba.”

S-Patterns as a common, foundation, platform.
This is precisely what I am trying to do with the technology idea of S-Patterns. The purpose of the original Stylometrics system, in the 80s & early 90s NSF research grants, was to be a “common platform” for the American apparel industry. They would not accept it, as Sears Roebuck and the Dept of Defense had also tried to do, for 20 years previously. So, in 2004, after my workshop at MIT, I decided to take Stylometrics, my “common platform” for pattern engineering, to you, Designer/Entrepreneurs (DEs) and to consumers. It’s purpose, likewise, is to allow you to play around with creating high fashion clothing without having to become an expert in every aspect of the fashion industry.

In my nine Primitives for NSF research grants, I validated that they could be a common platform in women’s wear, for every style that ever was, is, or could be. The Generic Patterns that we are now developing are an “evolution” of those Primitives, necessary for making the system simpler for developing some more complex styles. As we go in SELF (Self-Employed Laboratory of Fashion) we will develop more complex shapes, to gradually make more styles easier for you. However, please realize that all of this will take time. I no longer have any grant funding, and don’t want a business that makes money. But I do have some devoted people, self-employed, working with me to help, and I am deeply appreciative of that. Eventually (much later) we will set up what I call “FitAWear” standards, to simply changing patterns to fit some common problems. We even have “StyleAWear” and others under the umbrella of “SelfAWear” coming over time – all for you.

When we say a “common platform” or “standardization”, that means that every pattern style evolves from the foundation Primitives. You will note in the 12.9.06 post “More on SELF…” I showed the sheath dress sketch, or AB Primitive. Next to it I showed the sketch of an empire waist sheath, or AB-1 Generic. Size and measurements of the two are identical. The jewel neckline, sleeve, armhole are identical. The only difference is the waist and midriff, which is not as simple as it seems at first glance, because the empire waist indents under the bust more, and therefore also needs more length under the bust. After we have more generic dresses, tops, skirts, blazer, etc., we will also have generic necklines, collars, sleeves, etc. Later we will do pants. And even much later we will do some foundation construction technologies. All this for you at low cost, and some things will be free.

I’ll keep you updated as we get things ready. Happy New 2007!

S-Patterns and SELF (Self-Employed Laboratory of Fashion)

As an important reminder I will mention about S.E.L.F. structure on each blog post, that we are a Laboratory for research and solving problems in couture and high fashion design and production – for DEs and consumers all over the world – because you are the ones that need our help, and to whom I am committed. The same solutions can be used in lower priced apparel and big name manufacturers, but it is the high fashion market that desperately needs to learn quality yet also cost-effective ways of producing.I could give you many examples of bad shape/fit and poor workmanship on shape/fit on $2000 and up brand label apparel. But, if you truly want to sell and you’re not a “brand label”, then consider trying out our “S-Pattern” system. Yesterday’s blog post gave you a little on the S-Patterns for developing a fashion style. And in order to get these patterns you must learn first how to use them – in 3 learning lessons.

By January 6, 2007, we will have the first lesson on the web for you to do. You must email me of your interest to get the URL in an email reply.
1) The first lesson is about learning to SEE inside your mind, the 2-D & 3-D translations, which is what creative pattern making is all about. That is my Stylometrics system which I spent years researching with grants from the National Science Foundation, and is a non-mathematical system. You must have experience in sewing clothing to comprehend the system. Hopefully you have the ability to send me some sketches of shapes you draw by email. If not, then you can send by regular mail.
2) The second lesson is the experience of manipulating a primitive pattern to a new shape, still a creative, observing methodology.
3) The third lesson is the experience of adding seam allowances in such a way that an industrial stitcher can make the style cost-effectively.

Some have been asking me questions, such as learning ways to get better fitting. This is way down the road, and there are many new things to learn first about a new system. “First things first” and “One step at a time”, are some philosophies to guide you. Remember that the S-Patterns are “standards”, that are used to evolve all styles, shapes, and fit from. It’s the key by which we can help you with every pattern evolved from it. I’ve had a university in Singapore quote and praise the concept in the mid-1990s. A CAD vendor in Germany in 2001 contacted me about using the Stylometrics system. We emailed back and forth, until I realized he wanted me to design a way to put my system on top of his CAD system. I said no way, being a “standard”, he had to design a way to put his CAD system on top of my pattern system. We failed to agree, and I now realize that it’s best to teach it to the young DEs and consumers, and forget old hat CAD vendors & apparel manufacturers.

Please email me and let me know your interest, so that as soon as the URL is ready I will send it to you. Meanwhile, have a Happy & Successful New 2007. Shirley

More on S.E.L.F * Standards * Prepare for CHAT

Many of you are asking to learn more about SELF and the S-Patterns, or Stylometrics system. Here’s a very simple example, even though they are not ready yet for you to buy and use. In the Nov. 18th post, “SELF (Self-Employed Laboratory of Fashion) Coming” I diagrammed five of the nine “Primitive Patterns” that were designed and researched in my grants on Stylometrics, and that I said would be a base for the S-Patterns – P-1 Bodice, P-8 Skirt (as a dress in first sketch); P-2 Blazer, P-7 Pants (in second sketch); and P-9, Gored Skirt (in third sketch). The first sketch above is now a dress pattern I am calling AB Primitive. Note that it includes the sleeve accurately related to the bodice, and all pieces are planned to match perfectly. The second sketch is a generic evolution I am calling AB-1 Generic. The critical plan to make the system easy and excellent quality for everyone is that each generic will have just the key style as changes in the pattern. That is, note that the all over 3-D shape is almost the same except for the indent under the bust, and the jewel neckline, sleeves, sheath skirt are identical. This is very important for the ease in pattern making. There will be hundreds of generic patterns as we evolve them from all the primitives, including necklines, collars and sleeves.

What makes the Stylometrics system work is that the Primitive Patterns are standards, that is the #6 definition in the dictionary, “a structure built for or serving as a base or support”. The Generic Patterns will all evolve from the primitives, and you will need to evolve your personal styles from the primitives or the generics. I will not evolve the patterns for you, although there may be some technical designers connected to SELF eventually that may do that for you. I will do some instruction, but I’m trying to keep it simple. One thing to realize that this system takes an ability to see creatively in spatial dimensions inside the mind. That’s why I wrote the Oct 17th post, “Inner Visualization of 3-D / 2-D Translations in Pattern Making”. Please look at it again, and ask me questions if you don’t understand it. I am experimenting with a couple of designers online to see if they can understand this basic principle. That is this system is not drafting at all. If you study the photo of the blue silk dress with panels interwoven at the waist, (See Nov. 11th post, “4 Successful Vintage Fashions”) you will see that it can be evolved from the AB-1 Generic, with an empire waist. (Note, the photo was by Ron Ranere, Positive Images, www.positiveimage-boston.com ) But, it does require for you to “design”, “drape” and “see in your mind to develop further. It’s interesting that Georgene, designing for 25 years, says she “prefers draping to drafting”. Drafting is very old hat and belongs in the cheap commodity trade. But draping can be difficult to get a pattern for reproduction for more of the same styles. I’m trying to set up a system that still requires you to drape your ideas, but evolved from a standard so you will have the result reproducible.

I hope all of you will join our CHAT tomorrow, so we can discuss this further, and I can answer any questions. Remember you must go to Fashion Product Development Meetup and RSVP Yes, so that I know you are coming. I will cut anyone I don’t know from joining us.
http://fashion.meetup.com/221/

S-Patterns & SELF (Self-Employed Laboratory for Fashion)

Logo for
S Patterns
represents
fashion, & S
for S-ELF,
S-tylometrics
& S-hirley

STANDARDIZING PATTERNS
In my grant research work for NSF, an objective was to test the Stylometrics Primitive Patterns as standard templates for the whole American apparel industry. The graphic is an example of that testing. The dotted lines show the side view and 2D pattern pieces of the Stylometrics Pants Primitive compared with an Ann Klein pair of pants in solid lines - the same size, but Ann Klein’s was shaped for a model’s “stance”, while our Primitive was shaped for the average woman. The objective was that it would not matter if every manufacturer wanted a different shape, because the computer software I was designing could calculate the differences and match the appropriate one to “consumer profiles” to be established. The graphic was copied from the workshop paper for MIT that you can see at my web site. http://www.shirleywillett.com


There’s been many requests from around the world for me to help in quality pattern making and to answer problems that both my Stylometrics Pattern system and SELF is being designed to answer. Because I want this innovative system to be an excellent one and to be a legacy of my nearly 60 years of experience, expertise and knowledge of the fashion clothing industry, it must be carefully researched and developed. That’s why I call it a research LABORATORY. Please be patient – it takes time to be excellent. But it also takes knowing your needs and problems – so please keep letting me know more about your work.

Some history is necessary to understand the changes in direction for the use of the Stylometrics system over the past 20 years, and why it is taking time to develop it for you. That is, the original series of research grants that I won from the National Science Foundation, starting in 1989, were for helping the American apparel industry and their CAD/CAM vendors, completely different goals than for young designers and consumers. The graphic of the pants comparison is just one of many tests done for applying the system to the industry and trying to promote the tremendous need for standards. Unfortunately, I learned when working with NIST (National Institute for Standards & Technology) and Natick Army Labs, that Sears & Roebuck and the Dept. of Defense had spent 20 years pushing American apparel manufacturers to accept standards in just sizing. Each one said, ”Sure, but use mine. I’m not changing my sizes to anyone else’s” Even my innovation of having the computer calculate the differences, did not deter them. Perhaps it’s their egos, thinking they are the top dog, that has killed so many of them here in America – much more than prices and offshore contracting. Please do not let this happen to you, young designers!

I worked for years on objectives for the industry, with most of it previously not of value for the young designer, except for the Primitive Patterns themselves. After I did the workshop for MIT in January 2004, I made the decision to try again to do something again with this system, and started teaching “Fashion/Pattern Design for Beginners”, a 7 session course. I planned it differently than any school had ever taught it, by developing spatial relations in the students ‘ minds – learning “to see” - inner visualizations to manipulate pattern shapes. It’s much more creative and a lot more fun, but those few who are steeped in rules and want things all laid out for them don’t “get it”. You must learn to create solutions. The class and some individuals I mentored (like Tess) were a great test to show that this is the best way for creative young designers to learn pattern making and it also results in quality patterns that can be reproduced efficiently and cost effectively.

Our next step is to test it online. There are a couple of people that are going to test the first 3 important sessions of that online. Tess is one designer that has tested my systems for her use in China. Now I am working with Susan, a technical designer, that will work with using some of the Generic Patterns for a spring/summer collection, as well as helping me develop the Generic Patterns from the Primitive Patterns. There are a few others that are going to do certain things that will assist in researching and testing our system for you. I will tell you more about Generics in the next post. Please keep emailing me about your needs and desires.

1960s Fashion Show in Italy * More on SELF

One summer in the mid-60s I was invited to teach fashion design in Florence, Italy for an American college’s program called “Garland in Florence”. At the time I was chair of the fashion department at Mass. College of Art in Boston, so I had many of my own students with me. As a finale for the course we put on a delightful garden fashion show, and I added some of my own designs. It was a grand opportunity to use some of the magnificent Italian fabrics.

These are two of the group I designed. The photos, however, were taken in November, 2004 at my fashion show “Half-Century of Vintage Designs” by a great photographer, Ron Ranere, who also co-organizes the Boston Fashion Industry Meetup with me. It’s a great photographer who can take such good photos when models are concentrating more on moving fast for a show than on the photos. You can see more of Ron’s photos at www.positiveimage-boston.com, and learn more about the Boston Fashion Industry Meetup at http://fashion.meetup.com/1/

The dress on the left is in a four-ply pure silk crepe, and cut on the bias. The big bold black print was very 60s, as was the dress length. The unique feature was the neckline, which I call a “bib”. It was cut as a halter tying in the back, and the front was a few cowls shaped upward to form the bib shape. The dress on the right is in a 100% wool woven with gold and silver threads. The top is cut as a blouson, and the skirt is cut as a yoke skirt. The pleating was formed by tucking in an “umbrella” shape.

S.E.L.F. “Self-Employed Laboratory for Fashion

I’ve been getting a lot of requests from young designers who want both the Stylometrics Pattern System and the instructions on their use for quality, efficient, and fast pattern making. However, I am building a “research laboratory” with a few committed assistants who are self-employed in their own fashion design businesses to test further development. This takes time to make these beautiful for you with instructions for use. So, I beg your patience. I may have some beginning things after the first of the year.

We have agreed on the five primitives, and are in the process of deciding on what generic patterns we will have. Many pieces from my vintage collection will be used to explain some of those generics and how to use them. As, for example, we will have a “generic blouson”, and a “generic yoke skirt”, as developed further in the photo above. Eventually we will have a series of necklines and collars, such as a “generic cowl” neckline. If any of you have specific needs, please email me and let me know. It would help to add those needs into our plans, and you will benefit later.