Brita Hirsch continues our series on true bespoke tailoring by looking at the crucial role of the canvas, the structural heart of a tailored garment. I know from the bespoke jackets that I own that a well-made canvas adds shape and comfort to the garment, adapting itself to the shape of the owner as time passes. Here Brita explains the part played by the canvassing.
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| From the plane to three dimensions: cut parts are being marked with tailor’s tacks before being joined to the canvas |
Brita writes:
"The canvas of a bespoke coat or jacket is a mysterious thing, largely because it is rarely on show. Like an airbag, it takes an accident to bring it into view - or a curious client, who wants to know how ‘bespoke’ their commission really is.The canvas, in tailoring terms, is what makes or breaks the fit of the garment. It is its supportive understructure and its form-giving, albeit non-inverted mould. From the plane of the paper pattern (which I wrote about in the previous chapter in this series here), the skilled tailor creates a three-dimensional husk with quaint materials like horsehair, linen and cotton wadding that serves as the inner scaffold, providing structure and shape to the garment.
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| Hand pad stitching is used to join three different materials together for the canvas |
Joint together by hand ‘pad’ stitching, the layers of material are shaped during the same, time consuming process. Each stitch must penetrate all layers, and the way to know is to prick - lightly - the probing finger on the underside.Once it’s all done, the chest piece covered in rows of chevron stitches, the iron comes into the process to help press the canvas into shape. It is now that the tailor begins to introduce the customer’s upper body features into the garment.Shape in place, canvas and fabric panels are joined together with large, white cotton stitching - a process known as ‘canvassing’ - before other parts are added for the first (or ‘baste’) fitting.
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| The canvas is joined to the front panel with baste stitching, introducing shape in the process |
Why all the fuss and time spent on a manual process that remains hidden to the eye? Because, if done right, the effect is that of lasting structure and individual shape, the very quintessence of bespoke. Astoundingly, the flexible nature of hand stitches even means that the coat shapes itself to the body of the wearer over time.Fusing, gluing or any heat induced joining technique doesn’t even come close to this and has no place in bespoke tailoring".
For other features in the Exploring Bespoke series here on the blog, click here.
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