Vintage Couture Tailoring

The trade secrets of couture tailoring are revealed - an invaluable guide for professionals and enthusiasts.

Traditional tailoring has not changed for many centuries, however, the techniques are now known only by a few practicing in the best couture ateliers and bespoke tailor's workrooms. Nothing feels quite so luxurious as custom-made clothes, but the tailoring skills they require are often thought to be shrouded in mystery, and the clothes therefore only accessible to the rich and famous. This practical book brings vintage couture tailoring within everyone's reach.

With step-by-step photographs and professional tips throughout, it shows how a lady's jacket is made and thereby introduces a range of fundamental tailoring techniques. These can be used for garments for either gender, as well as other sewing projects. The book discusses molding fabric to shape with the iron, employing loose interfacings, hollow shoulder construction, pad stitching canvas, interlining and weighting hems, making tailored and bound buttonholes, and more forgotten techniques.

SELLING POINTS:

• Practised by only a few establishments around the world an this practical book reveals trade secrets
• Invaluable guide to professionals wishing to further their skills, and for enthusiasts with an interest in tailoring
• Show how to make a ladies' jacket from preparation through to assembly and reveals the exquisite finishing details that are a part of couture tailoring
• 417 superb colour photos
• Author is a tailor of international repute

About the Author

Thomas von Nordheim learned traditional tailoring during an apprenticeship in an old-style German couture salon. For seven years he cut and tailored for an illustrious clientele of aristocrats, politicians, and members of international society at the last surviving great London couture house, Lachasse. When the house closed, Thomas established his own successful business offering tailoring to private clients.