There are some designs that no amount of patternmaking wizardry can make happen. I can do a lot with a pattern, but (I hate to break it to you) I can’t defy the laws of physics.
I was at a friend’s rehearsal dinner seated at a table with the groom’s aunt, uncle, and one set of grandparents. We exchanged the usual “so what do you do?” questions. Upon hearing I am a patternmaker, the aunt – a successful and now retired PR executive – asked a question I haven’t heard often: “Have you ever been asked to make something impossible?”.
In fact, I have. Not so much that the designs were so fantastical that they weren’t possible, but rather that they weren’t functionally possible.
I’ve been given designs that had no way to get them on and off. I’ve been asked to make designs that seemed to defy gravity in the sketch and stand on their own without any support. I’ve been shown designs that would be possible to knit fully-fashioned, but not cut and sewn from a roll of fabric.
Many of these impossible designs can be made possible with a few tweaks, though. Adding a closure, thinking about the weight of the garment and internal structure, or adjusting the placement of seams can make the design a real possibility.
Once the functionality is considered, the impossible does become possible.