Thoughts on Sewing Outside of Gender
(I wrote this last year & it's still true, and still a frustration of the current home sewing scenes I sort of hang out on the periphery of. Figured I might as well post this on tumblr.)
I need pattern companies to step away from the idea that "genderless" is a shapeless sack that hides the body. All clothing can be worn by any gender. Home sewing skews very strongly towards femme cis women & pattern companies rarely show that anyone else is even considered as an audience.
A lot of companies that draft "men's" and "women's" styles try to move away from using gendered terms, but calling one set of patterns (for ex.) "triangle shape" and the other "hourglass shape" doesn't actually do anything to help with dissolving the gender binary within home sewing patterns.
These companies are still operating under the assumption that one set of patterns is for cis men and one set of patterns is for cis women. For example, I'm not sure I've ever seen this kind of company draft dresses for their "triangle shape" lines.
And don't even get me started on diagrams for how to measure your body for proper fit. One pattern company started using drawings of vases and it's like??? Okay I get the thought process but now it's impossible for a first time sewist to know where to measure accurately.
I would love to see pattern companies include trans models in their fit photos for every pattern release, not just pride. (Which, tbf, I have not even seen an example of this pride season...)
It's verrrrrry interesting to me that indie sewing companies want to pay lip service to courting queer customers without actually doing the work outside of June. If you want folks outside of a cisgender binary to know you welcome them, why aren't they represented in who you hire as models?
If a pattern company ACTUALLY wants to do something meaningful for their (potential) queer customers: interrogating why you only use models of a specific gender archetype is a place to start.
Furthermore: instead of splitting patterns into male/female types: consider how your patterns can be altered to fit a wider variety of gender expressions & bodies & make that information clear (in blog posts or pattern notes) to the customer.
I would also LOVE to see patterns with bust shaping to be released as both "full" and "flat" bust versions. Many companies already draft to multiple cup sizes. It's not that much more complicated to draft to no cup size as well.
It's really frustrating, as a skilled home sewist, to alter princess seams to fit when your shoulders and waist need X size but your chest matches the measurements of 4-6 sizes down. I skip soooo many patterns bc of this even though I like the style & pattern details.
Anyways this is really niche & even though I sew A LOT and lurk around sewing spaces, I don't really have a sewing community around me. In part bc everything is sooo biased towards cis femme women and that's just not me.
(this series of thoughts was sparked by a certain pattern company posting a literal shapelesss sack as a special "gender neutral" pattern. which was wild bc like, the rest of their patterns are highly structured and they already draft for multiple cup sizes?? L M A O. Tho tbf this year no one is doing anything for pride and that seems..... very bleak considering the times we are living through.)
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