The mystery of "Himmmm"

I've discovered some very interesting things about Indian tailoring.

Why am I tinkering with Indian tailoring? Well, because I ordered a bunch of Indian kurtas, and they all needed to be let out at the bust. 

Why did I order a bunch of Indian kurtas? Because that's what you wear when you take kathak, one of the seven(-ish) forms of classical Indian dance. 

Why am I in a classical Indian dance class? Honestly, at this point, your guess is as good as mine. My old flamenco teacher is semi-retired and I don't see her too often anymore, but she held an open class at a little local dance festival a couple of months ago, so I dropped in to visit. The next class over was one of the Indian things with the ankle bells, which turned out to be kathak. You all know me and shiny, noisy objects, so I stayed for that. The teacher is apparently just getting settled in here in Boston, so I gave her a list of places I knew of that rented out studios and sent her a few links for local arts grants, and long story short, she offered to let me take class for free if I just kept showing up and being helpful. These days, whenever someone offers to teach me something my only question is, "Will this cost me money?" No? Cool, let's go. 

In an unrelated coincidence, I've been trying to sell stuff on Poshmark, and apparently that gets you automatically entered into some kind of sweepstakes? I was completely unaware of this until I got an email telling me that I'd been awarded a chunk of shopping credit. I almost binned it, muttering about the boldness of phishers these days. Took a bit of investigation to convince me that no, this was an actual raffle that I had somehow entered and won. Long story short again, I did something on Poshmark and Poshmark randomly gave me Poshmark money for it. To spend on Poshmark. Because I totally need more clothes. Obvs.

I don't technically need to wear a kurta to class. All the teacher asks is that I wear something that doesn't swallow my feet, so she can see what I'm doing. As a rule, I keep my grubby paws off of garments that have any kind of ceremonial or spiritual significance to cultures that aren't mine. I am not crass enough to send models down a runway in war bonnets. Kurtas, however, are a mass market modern fashion item in India, which makes them both fair game and very cheap when thrifted on sites like, say, Poshmark. So long story short again again, now I have like six of them. Which, as abovementioned, all need to be let out at the bust.

When Western garments are tailored, typically what happens first is you take a whole bunch of measurements. If you're working in a proper, professional manner, these dimensions are translated into what's called a pattern block, a template for the flat pieces of fabric that will later be assembled into a 3D garment. I don't usually bother, but I'm only tailoring things from scratch for me; if you want to see how this process unfolds, the Closet Historian actually went to school for this, and has some excellent videos on how to draft blocks from first principles that explains the reasoning and basic math for it. 

Step two is cutting out the pieces and completing basic construction, sewing just the seams that hold the garment together. If you're doing something bag lined, in many cases this will be just the outer shell, so that any interior darts or pad stitching are still accessible -- and the reason for this is that step three is to try it on the client and make sure it fits. If yes, great; if no, adjustments are made (and noted on the pattern, if it is to be re-used for more garments) before doing any of the finishing work. The idea behind visible surface finishes like appliqué trim are obvious, but there is also a lot of potential finishing work done on the inside of the garment, mostly to keep any of the seam allowances from fraying. Mass market garments typically just overlock all the edges for security, but there are different methods available for use on couture pieces. Historically, flat-lined garments might have had the seam allowances whipstiched to the lining; more modern clothing might have the seams finished bias binding or seam tape, depending on the weight of the fabric. In most cases, extra fabric inside the piece is trimmed to keep the seam allowances an even width throughout.

The point is, this interior finishing is one of the last steps in the process. Western tailors don't finish the interior until they're done adjusting it for the wearer. Not so for Indian tailors. Americans tend to think of tailoring as this expensive thing only really bougie people do to their clothes, but in many parts of the world it's still standard operating procedure, India included. Even if you're buying formalwear, buying new from India typically gives you the option of ordering something "unstitched", "semi-stitched", or "stitched", with increasingly customized fit. It doesn't seem particularly expensive; from what I saw, it might add 10% to the price of the finished garment, which is not a lot even for a fully decked-out bridal lehenga. This seemed a bit unfair to the Indian tailors, who undoubtedly work very hard, until I actually got some of the Poshmark kurtas and realized that the process over there is completely different.

Taking in a Western garment is usually pretty easy, but letting it back out again is a roll of the dice, and this is largely because part of the finishing work involves trimming seam allowances to an even width throughout. If that width is less than the additional room you need + about 1/8" per seam, you're SOL. Not so for Indian garments. 

First of all kurtas are tailored. They look like simple flat tunics, but this is deceptive. Kurtas are fashion items, so I'm sure someone has thought about making one out of jersey knit at some point, but all of the ones I have are woven fabric cut on the straight grain. They are in fact shaped with curves in the side seams, and some have one or two double-ended darts in the back to further pull the waist in. (The front doesn't have bust darts, because the front is decorated with large plaques of embroidery or appliqué that would be disastrous to resize.) 

I expected to have to be verrrrrry careful trying to eke out some width across the chest, but flipping them inside out revealed a lot of super wide seam allowances with the edges surged together. Apparently, Indian garments are cut to a standard-sized pattern, assembled, finished on the inside, and then altered to fit the measurements of the wearer. Nothing is trimmed; the final line of stitching just wobbles back and forth according to how wide the garment needs to be at that point. Western tailors would be aghast at the total lack of trimming. In most cases it looks like the sleeves are finished separately from the body and set into the altered armscye, but even that isn't consistent -- I have a couple where the final fit adjustment is just a long line of stitching running from the end of the sleeve all the way down to where the garment is split at the side seams for easy movement. Where the front is lined for opacity, or to protect the back of the embroidery, it's just flat-lined and and stitched directly into the side seams. 

I am delighted to find this, because it means all my lazy tailoring is correct. It's a little tricky to get the curve right without putting any tucks in the front, but I can unpick and resew it as many times as I need without having to take anything completely apart. I'm still calibrating exactly how much ease I need to dance in them comfortably -- woven fabric doesn't stretch, so the garment has to be slightly bigger than I am -- but I can just keep redoing my work until it's right, without worrying that I'll run out of usable seam allowance. 

My free-Poshmark-money kurtas are all fairly heavily decorated on the front, because I am a magpie and like shiny things, but eventually I'm sure I'll get around to buying some cheap quilting cotton and making some plainer ones that don't make me nervous about machine washing. The raw block is just put together with straight seams down the max diameter of the garment. I don't have an overlock machine, but I do have an abundance of scrap chiffon that makes a very lightweight seam tape. The main impediment to doing it now is that I don't have a lot of plain-weave cotton or polycotton blend in my stash pile -- it's mostly from costumes, so if it's not shiny synthetic satin or taffeta, it's usually four-way stretch, which wouldn't hold its shape well enough to work.