Men's Garments 1830-1900: A Guide to Pattern Cutting and Tailoring Paperback – January 1, 1996

There are so few books with patterns for menswear, and most of those are flawed. I'm sure I will find flaws with this book as well, but my first impression is extremely favorable. I purchased this book after several frustrated attempts to draft a well-fitting Regency dress coat. When the book arrived, I immediately started drafting the 1830 dress coat in the book. My model was very similar in measurements to the scale in the book, so I drafted without changing many of the given measurements. The directions for drafting were clear and easy to follow. The end result fit like a glove. By far the simplest and best looking coat I have drafted.That said, this book is NOT for beginners. You need to understand sewing, tailoring, fitting, patterning, and what shapes you need for a period silhouette. As well, I expect that there may be trouble with the first draft of any garment intended for a man whose physique deviates from the norm. The book gives very limited information about what goes in to a tailored coat. The end user needs to have a fair amount of experience in order to translate the pattern to a good-looking finished garment, but the patterns themselves seem like a good starting point.Looking through the other patterns in the book, I am excited to have access to such a wide range of menswear, and anticipate that I will reach for this book first when working on men's costuming.

I found this book to be very helpful, as historical menswear can be very challenging and there are few resources to help the amateur costumer. I am a moderately advanced seamstress with next to no tailoring experience, and I found this book very useful. It provides instructions for drafting patterns with period shapes, from custom measurements. I just measured up my husband and drew my pattern as instructed based on those measurements. I found that my first mock-up required very few alterations (mostly just tweaks for my husband's specific body type) and was able to move on to the final garment after one toile.I have only drafted one coat so far: the first tailcoat, c. 1830. I found it to be relatively authentic (most of my research was concentrated about 15-20 years earlier, so I can't say I thoroughly understand this period, but it seemed appropriate from my cursory understanding of the fashions of the year.)I would definitely recommend this, and I look forward to drafting more of the patterns in this book.Note: There is very little sewing instruction in this book - it is mostly for drafting the pattern only. There are a few notes on how to interline/line the coats, which are very helpful, but other than that you are on your own. But that's not so bad, if you just try putting the pieces together and everything should make sense.

Surprisingly detailed and easy-to-use patterns for many variations of each garment type. There isn't a whole lot of sewing advice, so it's not for the beginner or newer novice, but the patterns are easy to work with, simple to scale, and give you dozens of beautiful options for each jacket, vest, pant, cloak, and coat.If you've got any experience making suit coats, blazers, or jackets, you will understand this book immediately. If you do not have the experience, I suggest pairing this book with a free youtube video that shows each step of assembling a fitted jacket, including sleeve vents, notched collar, and how to line the whole mess. It's a little over an hour long, but you will be very glad to see the steps (and have them explained). The video is titled FD 62 Patternmaking ii, lesson 3.Happy beautiful jacket making!

Not exactly a reference book for historians, this is ideal for the costumer.The patterns are complete and can be adapted to actors' bodies and one reviewer has already noted the variety of men's items: frockcoats, tailcoats, a variety of trousers (suiting different periods) with a small selection of reference photographs, portraits and fashion plates.What are wanting in this book are the sources for the pictorial references. Not all the men pictured are noted in the captions (and some are very famous, such as poet Leigh Hunt)), nor are the sources for the images. In one image from the 1860s, a man obviously in mourning (from the wide band on his top hat, a member of President Lincoln's staff presumably after the assassination) is not stated as such. To overlook mourning dress in a book about 19th century clothing is an enormous oversight.Also distracting are the rather poor line illustrations in the book. The human body looks stilted and the proportions are off. A more competent illustrator would have added more authority to this otherwise quite recommendable guide.

The book was exactly as described - in excellent used condition. The shipping was super fast and the packaging was superb - well wrapped and padded in a box.

Love this bookNeeded to replace one that got damaged.Very fast. Great seller

Not for the novice pattern maker, but for those interested in drafting period menswear to a modern gentleman's measurements, this book is lovely. I particularly enjoy the visual history at the beginning of the book that shows the evolution of the frock coat into the more modern sack coat. I do find that instructions, measurements and guiding diagrams end up on awkward pages and I usually have to photocopy one or two pages while I am working on a project to save flipping back and forth. A wonderful resource.

The book far exceeds my expectations and it is in mint condition. Plus it got here very fast! Kudos