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My design professor said draping on a cheap foam mannequin was a waste of time, but I found a $20 one at a thrift store in Phoenix and it completely changed how I see fabric flow.
I ignored the advice to only use professional forms and discovered that working with a basic, imperfect shape actually forced me to solve problems creatively, leading to a more dynamic final piece for my collection last semester.
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olivia_lopez985mo ago
Totally get that... my first sewing projects were on a thrift store dummy too, and it made me figure stuff out way more than a perfect one ever could.
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wright.leo5mo ago
What was the most useful thing you had to figure out on that dummy?
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the_brian3mo ago
Figured out that padding it out to match my actual measurements was way more important than the dummy's original shape. I stuffed old t-shirts and used a cheap foam mattress topper in key spots like the bust and hips. Made a world of difference for fitting sleeves and seeing how fabric actually hangs on a real body instead of some idealized mannequin shape.
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fionam115mo ago
Honestly, how did you get it to hold pins? Mine was so cheap the foam just ate them. I had to wrap the whole thing in a few layers of packing tape first, which was a pain but it made the surface workable. That weird fix taught me more about fabric tension than anything else, because I had to really think about how the material wanted to sit over a harder shell. Sometimes the janky tools force you to learn the rules better so you can break them later.
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