Problems fitting Uniquely You
Mirabelle Severn & Thames
I recently bought the Uniquely You dressform, and my mother
agreed to fit the cover for me. Well, about 1/3 of the way
through the fitting, she is running into problems she didn't
expect, and doesn't feel secure trying to finish the project.
I can't say for sure how severe the problems are, first because
I have almost no experience with fitting and second because
I can't see what's happening very well with the cover on my
body. Can anyone give advice? I suppose I'll need to hire
a professional to do it; can anyone tell me what level of
dressmaker I should approach and how much I should expect it
to cost?
I'm really surprised that my mother is overwhelmed by the
project, as she's been sewing all her life (though not so
much in recent years) and has taken several fitting classes.
I know several people on this group own Uniquely You forms;
how experienced in fitting were the people who fitted your
covers?
Thanks for any help.
Naomi
wyl...@csos.orst.edu
Mirabelle Severn & Thames <nao...@sco.com> wrote:
>
>I recently bought the Uniquely You dressform, and my mother
>agreed to fit the cover for me. Well, about 1/3 of the way
>through the fitting, she is running into problems she didn't
>expect, and doesn't feel secure trying to finish the project.
>I can't say for sure how severe the problems are, first because
>I have almost no experience with fitting and second because
>I can't see what's happening very well with the cover on my
>body. Can anyone give advice? I suppose I'll need to hire
>a professional to do it; can anyone tell me what level of
>dressmaker I should approach and how much I should expect it
>to cost?
If I were in your shoes, I would call either Roberta Carr or
the Sewing Workshop and ask them to refer you to someone who
specializes in these things. Even though a person has lots of
sewing experience, it isn't hte same as trying to get the foam
to imitate a person's figure...there are certain tricks to
this.
wyldwmn
Marie-Christine Mahe
real expert in fitting these dress forms and it'd be well worth your while to
make an appointment with her. Otherwise, this is really not a standard
fitting problem - for one the fit has to be absolutely, firmly skin-tight
(while not squashing body parts unduly), and rather than disguising odd
features of your anatomy it's necessary to make sure they're all perfectly
reproduced. A good source of help with dress-form fitting is theatrical
people - they usually rely on dress forms a lot and have a lot of experience
with them, so explore your local theater.
Marie-Christine
mahe-marie...@yale.edu
Diane Barlow Close
>
>I recently bought the Uniquely You dressform, and my mother
>agreed to fit the cover for me. Well, about 1/3 of the way
>through the fitting, she is running into problems she didn't
>expect, and doesn't feel secure trying to finish the project.
Okay, I think I'm brave enough now to tell everyone about my experiences
with "Uniquely You". I ordered mine from National Thread and Supply
Company (in Atlanta, Georgia) who, in turn, get their supply directly from
the UY folks but are able to discount it quite a bit. I ordered the
"extra small" form and from the measurement range given it should've been
just fine.
Unfortunately for me, I ordered at the time that the U.Y. folks were
trying out a new foam extrusion mix. Somehow I got one of the "test"
dummies instead of the real thing. The problem with the new mix was that
it discoloured and expanded (greatly) when faced with humidity. I didn't
know that when I got my dummy; I just knew it looked a bit mottled and way
too big to "squish" down to my size.
In fact, the dummy had a 44 DD bust! I called the UY company about this
but they assured me that I must be wrong, that the bust couldn't be that
big and that even if it was it would shrink once the cover was applied.
They explained that the foam was much bigger than the cover, but that the
foam would compress greatly and that I should just go ahead and make my
cover and all would become clear soon. They explained that a lot of force
was needed to compress their foam, but compress it would and I should just
try it and see.
After I got off the phone, I remeasured the bust and it was, indeed, 44DD
(it was HUGE). It looked like some bizarre, life-sized headless Barbie.
Encouraged by the phone conversation with the UY people, I started sewing
up my cover. I fitted the top half, on me, just fine. I zipped it off
and tried to zip it on the dummy. It wouldn't go; it wouldn't squish.
I asked my husband for help. Eventually we had the dummy on the floor
with my husband kneeling on top of the breasts and me pushing from
underneath the cover trying to compress everything into place. Then we
started wondering what this must look like to our neighbours, so I got up
and closed the curtains! :-) Continuing our wrestling match, we managed
to stuff MOST of the breasts into the cover, but we couldn't, for the life
of us, compress them so they all fit into the cover.
We managed to get the cover zipped into place but there was "breasts"
popping out all over the place! We decided to see if we could squish the
breasts into place any further. My husband pushed from above while I
pushed from below. Whammo, side seams gave away and we had breast
"leaking" out the side. We tried again. And again. It was a hot and
humid summer day and we were not enjoying this strenuous activity very
much.
Finally we achieved some measure of success, with the cover "centered"
over massive "breasts" peering around all sides. We stood back. BLAMMMO!
The cover seams all gave way at once and blew off the dummy, leaving
"Barbie" once again standing naked before us. Not only that, but the
"breasts" appeared to have grown! They certainly looked bigger to me, and
a check with the measuring tape now clocked them at 50 DD!! Help, it's
Barbie from Hell! :-D
We called UY and complained strenously this time. I pointed out that my
dummy was "growing". They put the owner/creator on the phone and he
realized that we had gotten a "bad" dummy, that is, one made with the bad
experimental foam. The discolouration was the key to recognition. He
asked me to send it back to him for inspection and replacement.
You'd think that would be the end of it, wouldn't you? Well, think again!
:-) I packaged the dummy up, in the original box, and sent it off
UPS-insured. I got a call a couple days later because UY had *refused* my
shipment! I couldn't believe it! After they had asked me to send it back
directly to them! I couldn't figure out what must've gone wrong so called
them back, immediately. The told me they didn't take damaged goods.
What?! What did they mean "damaged" goods? I sent back an intact
product! It was a defective product, but then they knew that as they were
the ones who had asked me to send it to them for inspection.
Unfortunately the person who handled the shipment was away and all the
woman on the phone knew was that the shipment had been refused due to
"damage", so I would have to wait a few days for the original person to
return to explain why she refused my shipment.
I got my answer a couple days later when a "hit and run" UPS driver lobbed
a grotesquely-deformed (previously-a-box) shape over my fence and ran for
the truck. It seems that somewhere along the line the package must've
fallen off the truck and been backed over several times by a truck. The
rectangular box was now a triangle and the remains of the dummy had tire
tracks on it. Not only that, but it seems it had expanded some more, in
transit, and one breast had blown a hole in the box and was now sitting
there "staring" at the world rather ominously. The other breast had been
ripped off, mostly, and was attached to the dummy by only a wee bit of
foam. Numerous other cuts and scrapes told tales of some type of weird
raging battle that had been fought between this dummy and who-knows-what!
:-)
I called up UPS wondering how the heck they managed to turn my package
into the deformity before me and they offered to send another driver out
to pick it up for inspection. By this time I wasn't about to trust
another "ride" on the truck, so I insisted that they send out an inspector
directly to inspect the damage here. Under the circumstances, and
considering the amount of money involved, they agreed.
When the UPS claims person came out to inspect the damage she asked me
what on earth this "thing" was used for. She treated it like she thought
she could get Bubonic Plague from it. She started shaking her head and
complaining about all the weird sex toys she was forced to inspect now
that she was based out here in San Francisco and not back in good old
Illinois... I tried to explain that it was a manequin for sewing and
fitting clothes, not some "sex toy". She didn't believe me. She wrote it
up as "inflatable foam doll" and treated it like it had some disease she
didn't want to catch.
She had to remove the dummy from the box, and in order to do that you had
to compress the one "escaped" breast to get it back through the hole so
the rest of the dummy could come out of the box. She didn't want to touch
the breast. No sirree! She was NOT going to touch another breast, not
even a foam one! It was very amusing to watch. She honestly believed it
was some kind of sex toy and I was some kind of pervert... :-D I finally
got the dummy out of the box for her, but even then she wouldn't touch it
to inspect the damage. :-) It was very embarrassing! She quickly agreed
that UPS would give me a full refund and I don't think I've seen anyone
leave my house so quickly... :-D
Anyway, all's well that ends well, and I got my money back in full from
UPS. I didn't have the nerve to try another "Uniquely You". I bought a
Dritz Double. I don't really need the "fits your shape" capability of UY,
as I'm pretty well the industry standard shape anyway. Yes, I'm one of
the rare few who can use patterns directly from the envelope and have them
fit perfectly. Do the Dritz Double turned out to be just fine for me.
Now the Dritz won't be good if I ever decide to do period underwear, like
corsets. Uniquely You dress forms get discussed all the time on the
Historic Costume Mailing List (send e-mail to
h-costum...@andrew.cmu.edu if you want to sign up or get more
info). They're a real boon to theatre people and anyone needing a perfect
fitting garment. They do take a lot of work to set up. Well, I shouldn't
say a lot of work really, I mean they take more compressing and accurate
sewing than the brief instructions would have you think. They really
should do a UY fitting video some time!
Elizabeth Poole (e...@watson.ibm.com) points out that you need to purchase
a Uniquely You dress form by your measurements, and she really means YOUR
measurements, not your dress size. UY really does come looking like
Elizabeth Taylor out of the box, but it WILL compress down to your proper
size with a bit of work. She says that in the theatre world, Uniquely You
dress forms are known as "torpedo tits" in the costume shops. :-D So
they are "large" when you get them, but they do compress. My own
experience was rare -- I got a defective one after all.
As for dealing with figure problems, Elizabeth says that:
> The UY was the ONLY form I could get to deal with my high waist and
> straight shoulders. None of the fixed-body forms did that at all. AND the
> UY can cope with corsets -- it's the only form I know of that can.
In order to properly fit the cover to the dummy, you really do have to
smush it on the floor, sit on it and squeeze it really good. "That's what
it takes," says Elizabeth "I coulda sold tickets! :)"
ejp:
> Fitting these things is nontrivial, actually. But I've worked on all
> the sizes, and fit them to all shapes of actress AND actor (we shaved the
> foam torpedos off our boy form with a foam knife) and never once saw
> breast leakage. My own XS is living inside a double-A cup casing, with no
> leakage. The armscyes on my casing are *tight*. Just remember to sew the
> cover with carpet thread, or button/buttonhole thread, or incredibly
> strong thread with the seams stitched twice, maybe three times.
I hope this helps someone! :-)
--
Diane Barlow Close
cl...@lunch.asd.sgi.com
I'm at lunch today. :-)
Mary Wilson
lot lower than mine, not to mention much bigger. I eventually gave the
rack and the foam part away to someone who planned to use it as a
clothing mannequin.
---
* QMPro 1.50 42-5794 * It's my foot and I'll put it in my mouth if I want to.
wyl...@csos.orst.edu
Marie-Christine Mahe <mahe-marie...@yale.edu> wrote:
>If you are in the Bay Area, Barbara at the Sewing Workshop (415-221-SEWS) is a
>real expert in fitting these dress forms and it'd be well worth your while to
>make an appointment with her. Otherwise, this is really not a standard
>fitting problem - for one the fit has to be absolutely, firmly skin-tight
>(while not squashing body parts unduly), and rather than disguising odd
>features of your anatomy it's necessary to make sure they're all perfectly
>reproduced. A good source of help with dress-form fitting is theatrical
>people - they usually rely on dress forms a lot and have a lot of experience
>with them, so explore your local theater.
Sounds like a job for our friend Wild Bill.....
wyldwmn
Marilee Marshall
>with my husband kneeling on top of the breasts and me pushing from
>underneath the cover trying to compress everything into place. Then we
>started wondering what this must look like to our neighbours, so I got up
>and closed the curtains! :-) Continuing our wrestling match, we managed
>to stuff MOST of the breasts into the cover, but we couldn't, for the life
>of us, compress them so they all fit into the cover.
>Diane Barlow Close
Diane, thanks for the laugh of the day. I LOVED IT!!!
marilee
at stanford
Diane Barlow Close
>
>Diane, thanks for the laugh of the day. I LOVED IT!!!
I'm glad everyone enjoyed it! It's been almost two years since the
"incident" and it still manages to crack me up every time I think about
it. My husband reminded me that I forgot to mention that the returned
dummy had also been impaled by a large spike or rod, which caused a large
hole in the middle, right where the heart would be. Seems they didn't
think that running over it with a truck was sufficient to kill it... :-)
Either that or Vlad the Impaler must be working the UPS docks! :-)
Susan M. Grabousky
>Uniquely You dress forms...are a real boon to theatre people
Reading this post got me to wondering (actually, it got me
laughing, but back to my question) about how theatre costumers
actually use UY dress forms. I would guess that major movie studios,
opera companies, and the like have warehouses full of UY DeNiro/Julia
Roberts/Pavarotti dummies, but what do the smaller groups do? Do
you have a couple of dummies in each size, and refit the covers
each time a principal (principle? I could never get these two straight)
actor comes or goes? If you're an actor, do you bring your own dummy
to get a better fitting costume?
Sorry if this is a stupid question (I'm not a theatre person).
Also, I realize this isn't exactly sewing related, but I just got
curious. Thanks.
Susan Grabousky
--
Susan M. Grabousky email: s...@tinman.dmc.com