The Pagoda Model Playlist

In this video lesson, we will explore a range of professional tailoring tools used by professional tailors around the world to make suits worth thousands of pounds.

We will look at a range of rulers, scissors, markers, weights, precision instruments and eventually filter out the very essentials to help you avoid paying excessively for fancy tools that you might not even need.

In this video lesson, you will learn the purpose of essential pressing tools used by tailors such as tailors-hams, sleeve-boards and point pressers.

We will look at a few examples of pressing tools, discuss their purpose and filter out the very essential ones to avoid stacking up these giant occupiers of space around and underneath our work bench.

In this video lesson, you will draft and make your own tailors-ham.

We will first teach you how to draft your pattern followed up by detailed making instructions.

Making your own tailors-ham not only warms you up for the lessons ahead, but also prevents you from paying excessive amounts for something you can easily make at home. 

You can also download existing ham patterns made by us here.

In this video lesson, we are going to focus on templates and ruler shapes which are an essential part of your arsenal. Templates allow tailors to make consistent lines that add a personal touch to their work. 

We will go through essential patterns that every professional tailor keeps next to their work bench.

Making your own rulers is not only a crucial skill but also saves you the risk of buying useless curve rulers that you may not end up using after a while.

We have a curated list of industry standard rulers and shapes which you can download here for free and use during our lessons or your own projects.

Tailoring is synonymous to high quality, luxury materials. But that’s not all. In this video lesson, we will go through all materials and trimmings that tailors around the world use to make suits that are worth thousands of pounds.

We will go through materials such as cotton, linen, wool and horse hair interlinings followed by threads, buttons and fusibles to give you a better understanding of what you will need to make a bespoke suit.

To increase the quality of your learning, we have assembled the perfect material bundle to follow our lessons with. See our bundles for both models here.

In this video lesson, we will explain the important role that fabric grain plays in tailoring. Not only does fabric grain affect the construction of our garment but our pattern is also dependant on it.

We will talk about the characteristic of warp, weft and bias grain to help you avoid making mistakes during the marking and cutting process of your materials.

In this video lesson, you will learn what construction lines are and why they are important to our pattern.

Construction lines not only guide us through the fitting process, but also affect the way we cut out our fabric.

In this video lesson we will give you the principles of fabric lay-out to help you lay your patterns correctly on fabric, before marking and cutting them out.

We will explain with small paper examples what you should keep in mind during this important step to help you avoid costly mistakes.

In this video lesson, we will cut out the patterns of our Pagoda Model. We will teach you how and where to lay the front, back, side and sleeve panels whilst leaving a little extra for our “fit-up”, which is the extra material used to sew our facings, top collars and pockets.

The correct lay will not only save you money by laying your patterns economically, but also prevent your project from not having enough cloth to be completed after hours of work.

See our quick notes on the lay plan used in this lesson, available here as a free pdf download.

In this video lesson, we will cover what the correct sewing posture is for both sitting and standing down. 

If you're planning to make tailoring your career, it's wise to develop good habits around your sewing posture right from the start. We will demonstrate the right and wrong way to help you sew without pain and loss of concentration.

In this video lesson, we will introduce you to an important principle called the "Law of Relative Length", a term coined by Reza. Any shape or volume created in tailoring falls subject to this law.

We will discuss the different subsections of this law which essentially translate to separate techniques and briefly demonstrate where they are used.

This will prepare you for the in-depth explanations of the lessons ahead.

What is the purpose of a body canvas in tailoring? That’s the question that we’re answering in this video lesson.

The body canvas is the hallmark of bespoke tailoring. It not only serves an aesthetic purpose but also aids in the longevity of the garment. Watch this video to find out how.

What is the canvas construction of a tailored jacket based on? In this video lesson, we will discuss the factors that make up the design of the body canvas of our Pagoda Model.

By using clear illustrations, we will show you what its draft and layering are based on to prepare you for making one yourself.

In this very important video lesson, we will thoroughly walk you through darts and wedges, which are both subsets of the Law of Relative Length.

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Most shapes and volumes that are created in any sewing discipline are done with the introduction of darts or wedges. Not only will we cover the different types of darts and wedges that are commonly used, but we'll also challenge you further with three exercises to sharpen up your skills.

This video lesson is all about constructing the body canvas our Pagoda Model. We will combine professional grade wool canvas and horse hair interlinings to build the skeleton of our bespoke jacket.

The right body canvas prevents your garment from losing shape and adds an eye pleasing smoothness to the look your jacket.

In this video lesson, we will mark-stitch the panels of our Pagoda Model.

Mark-stitching is used to transfer the chalk lines of one fabric layer over to another. The best thread for mark-stitching is slightly thicker than the ordinary basting thread and has a lot more fibres attached to it for maximum grip.

Click here to watch our foundation lesson on how to do the mark-stitch.

Iron-work in bespoke tailoring refers to a set of techniques that with the help of an iron, stretch or compress the fabric in certain areas to achieve volume and shape.

It is a sought after technique and somewhat a secret skill that professional tailors learn after a lot of experimentation.

We don’t like secrets at International School of Tailoring so we made it all simple and explain everything you must know about it in this video lesson.

In this video lesson, we will teach you how to transfer the shape of a cut-edge to the surface of the fabric with a technique coined by Reza as the “Edge to Fold Transfer”.

This technique is used in many areas such as side-seam inlays around the waist area or the fore-arm seams of tailored sleeves with a "false fore-arm".

It prevents puckers and pulls caused by a tightness in the fabric but also helps to compress excess fabric in areas that require it.

In this video lesson, we will baste areas on our back, front and sleeve panels to prepare them for the lessons ahead.

If you have ever wondered how to prepare these panels for a baste-fitting, this video will explain it all to you.

“Relative Layer Length” is a subset of “Relative Length”, both terms coined by Reza to explain how and why shape is created on tailored jackets.

Relative Layer Length happens when two fabrics are joined together at different lengths, such as on lapels or front-edge curves of a jacket to achieve a subtle curve.

This video lesson will explain how it’s done and challenge you with a few fun exercises to deepen your understanding about this technique.

Canvassing in bespoke tailoring refers to the process of basting the fabric of the front-panel to the body-canvas. 

While this is a simple technique to learn and understand, the unfortunate secrecy around this technique has made it look like a very complicated one. 

All good practice rests on a solid theory and in this video lesson, we will teach you the fundamental theory of canvassing a bespoke jacket.

In this video lesson, we will apply everything we learned about the theory of canvassing in practice. 

This shall help you to clarify any misunderstandings that you might have and make the process of canvassing simple and fun. We have also covered potential mistakes that you might make as a beginner.

As a bonus, we have also included instructions on how to canvas a tailored ladies jacket.

In this video lesson, we are going to combine the theory and practice of canvassing that we learned in the previous two lessons and canvas our Pagoda Model.

In this video lesson, we are going to reinforce the break-line of our jacket by applying a strip of Silesia that is cut on the straight grain.

This strip is often referred to as a "bridle". Since the break-line of our jacket is on the bias grain, it is prone to stretching which can ruin the horizontal balance of the garment.

At later stages, the bridle will be padded along with the lapels to keep it permanently in place.

In this video lesson, we are going to show you how to baste the side-seams of your back to that of the side-body panel of our jacket.

In this video lesson, we are going to discuss two techniques that tailors use to create shape: Gathers and Shape by Angle with the latter being a term coined by Reza.

Both techniques are a subset of the Law of Relative Length. Understanding how gathers work and how they differ from gathers that are created through Shape by Angle clarifies your perception of gathers. Not all gathers create shape and in this lesson you'll learn why.

This video lesson is extremely important if you want to understand tailored shoulders. We have created a comprehensive, 3-part lesson to explain everything you need to know about tailored shoulders in detail.

In this first part, we are going to discuss anatomy, seam position and seam design.

In this second part of our video lesson on shoulder theory, we are going to take a deep dive into the industry standard of shoulder construction. 

While it’s an industry standard, we don’t believe that this method of constructing shoulders is appropriate from a technical level. 

To help you understand this, we will demonstrate examples and evaluate this method step by step.

In this third part of our video lesson on shoulder theory, we are going to teach you how to draft and make the challenging Pagoda shoulder pad.

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Learning to make your own shoulder pads as a tailor is as important as learning to construct the body canvas of your jacket. These techniques allow you to craft any silhouette you can imagine. 

In this video lesson, you will learn to correctly baste the shoulder seams of your jacket and attach it to the body canvas. 

Since shoulders are one of the most important factors of a tailored jacket, it’s crucial to understand how to do it correctly to avoid messy shoulder seams and shapes.

In this video lesson, we will teach you step-by-step the factors that make up a tailored collar. You will learn why a collar pattern is made the way it is and how construction plays an important role within it.

We will then proceed with demonstrating how you can draft your own collar pattern for your bespoke jacket to help you avoid a false start.

In this video lesson, we will show you how to make a fabric under-collar also known as a "self under-collar". You will use stiff linen collar canvas along with fabric and secure them together with a padding-stitch.

In this video lesson, you will learn how to correctly baste the felt under-collar of a bespoke jacket to the neck circle and lapels.

A correct under-collar is dependant on a small neck circle, the right amount of curve on its break-line and minor corrections to the pattern that can only be calculated during make up. 

Learning to set a pair of tailored sleeves in a jacket is often one of the most complicated parts of bespoke tailoring. The reason for this is often poor explanation that leads to mis-understanding the factors involved that influence the shape, hang and fit of a sleeve.

In this video lesson, we will teach you the fundamental theory of sleeves to deepen your understanding about them and prepare you for the next lesson in which we’ll baste the actual sleeves in.

In this video lesson, you will learn how to baste in the sleeves of your Pagoda Model. The purpose of this lesson is to learn ease distribution also known as distribution of fullness. The sleeve pattern is cut bigger than usual to have as much ease as possible, forcing you to distribute it evenly.

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Tailored sleeves are one of the most important components of a bespoke jacket. They have a sculpted look and when done well, truly set the jacket apart from all others.

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The difference between a roped sleeve and a classic 'West End' sleeve is the extra gathering in the crown area. This creates more room which in turn is filled in by the sleeve head wadding. Traditionally this area was filled with a piece of cord or thin rope, hence the name 'Roped Sleeve'.