1930s Qipao: Part 4. Shaping

For a non-silk/wool fabric, you will need bust darts unless the wearer has a very small cup size. The back darts help eliminate drag lines (if any) and shape the back without using the stretching/shrinking method. You can also decide whether you want back darts later when you have finished the gown. Pin/glue/tape the dart parts and check that the side seam on the front piece can line up with the side seam on the back piece, marking the hip points for alignment.

For silk and wool, the darts could be replaced by shaping by stretching/shrinking the fabric with steam. This is done on the side seams. Generally, you shrink at the underarm, bust, hips and cuffs, and you stretch at the waist. With proper shaping at the bust, I personally don’t need any more shaping from the under-bust all the way to my thighs, because I have a small chest and then my stomach is flat when viewed from the side. I stretch side seams on the back piece very lightly around the waist, and shape around the hip area on the back piece and the thighs on the front.

Personally, I find that the silks I buy in China and Japan are more loosely woven and easier to shrink or stretch. The silks produced in the UK or Europe seem more tightly woven and harder to distort.

Section Five demonstrates the way to make a pattern with bust darts. To make it dart-less, disperse the bust dart on each side into three or four smaller darts and draw a gentle curve (fig. 6).

Figure 6. Disperse the dart evenly for steam-shrinking.