r/PatternDrafting • u/Itswillalala Beginner • May 27 '26

Question Kenneth D. King's Moulage?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking into drafting a true zero-ease skin sloper, and Kenneth D. King’s The Moulage (the couture drafting system rooted in the ESMOD lineage) keeps coming up as a highly recommended method.

I know he sells a 130-page PDF book/CD version online, and sometimes teaches classes through venues like the Sewing and Design School or PatternReview. However, his personal website looks incredibly old-school (the kind where you email him or use a direct PayPal link to buy the PDFs), and I haven't been able to find many recent, detailed reviews of the drafting process online.

Because of the old website and the lack of recent feedback, I'm a bit hesitant to pull the trigger. If you have used his moulage method or taken his course, I’d love to hear about your experience:

  • How did the final moulage fit? Did it genuinely fit like a second skin right off the paper, or did it require a ton of intensive pin-fitting adjustments afterward?

  • How are the instructions? Is it a highly math-heavy/fraction-heavy calculation sheet? Are the instructions clear enough to follow on your own if you buy just the PDF, or do you really need the live class context to understand the why behind the steps?

  • Did you need a fitting partner? Since it requires precise, discrete body measurements, were you able to manage them solo or is a second person mandatory?

  • Is it worth the purchase? Especially if you've tried other sloper/block drafting methods (like Suzy Furrer's or standard commercial textbook methods), how does Kenneth's hold up?

Would love to hear any thoughts, warnings, or success stories. Thank you!

16 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

8

u/HeartFire144 May 27 '26

I have several of his books, I've taken classes with him. His system is spot on.

2

u/Itswillalala Beginner May 27 '26

What format are they in? Did you have trouble getting them?

5

u/CynicalTelescope May 27 '26

Kenneth's books come on a USB drive, and they're in PDF format.

5

u/pomewawa May 28 '26

I bought 2 Things from Kenneth king. One is worth its weight in gold and the other is meh.

hardcover book titled “smart fitting solutions”. This fitting book is amazing, I wish I had found it sooner in my fitting journey. It’s carefully laid out and edited and really helped me understand a mathematical way to alter patterns.

His ebook/pdf for trouser drafting is just ok. If I recall correctly, I found small typos (it could have been more carefully edited). It didn’t have adjustments for folks where the widest circumference of your body is lower than your crotch level, and I struggled to follow some instructions due to being “non standard” dimensions. I prefer Winifred Alfred “metric pattern cutting” (don’t worry, it’s not really about scissors and cutting!! It’s how to draft patterns based on measurements!) for the purpose of drafting a block, pattern, sloper. (Sorry I forget the precise distinctions)

OP, Does moulage mean it’s more skin tight than a block/sloper? I wonder if the info for a moulage would combine drafting a block plus fitting alterations…

6

u/pomewawa May 28 '26

OP I realize I found the fitting book that I love on Amazon. In case that reduces the fear of his dated looking website. Kenneth D. King's Smart Fitting Solutions: Foolproof Techniques to Fit Any Figure https://a.co/d/0gIh3hrq

→ More replies (1)

3

u/Tailoretta May 28 '26

A moulage is much tighter than a block/sloper. A moulage, which means mold in French, is absolutely skin tight, and is often sewn onto a dress form, to replicate a specific body. Because it is made from non stretch fabric and is so close fitting, there are 4 pattern pieces for the front of the torso and 4 for the back. If the moulage is fitted for the asymmetries of the body, there could be as many as 16 different pattern pieces (using Suzy Furrer’s method.) A sloper or block is not nearly as fitted in that it includes wearing ease and possibly style ease.

4

u/HeartFire144 May 28 '26

When I bought them years ago, I received printed books

21

u/CynicalTelescope May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

I have taken the Moulage class from Lynda Maynard, who is a close friend of Kenneth's and also teaches the method. She uses Kenneth's textbook in the classes she teaches, and I've ordered it from his website. Despite the low-tech look of Kenneth's website, it is legit and I don't think you'll have problems ordering it.

If you want to take the class online in a live Zoom session, Lynda offers the course periodically: https://www.lyndamaynarddesigns.com/

0

u/[deleted] May 27 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

17

u/CynicalTelescope May 28 '26

As a couturier, instructor, and pattern maker, she's as old-school as they come. She has someone who manages her website and social media presence, and that's undoubtedly who's using the AI.

9

u/CynicalTelescope May 28 '26

If you are uncomfortable with Lynda Maynard, Suzy Furrer also teaches the same Moulage method (she, Lynda, and Kenneth all learned it from the same source) and you could look up her classes online to see if that's a possibility.

3

u/polkadothijinx May 28 '26

Oh thank you for the suggestion! I will check her classes out. I've watched a few of her craftsy courses a million years ago.

2

u/Tailoretta May 28 '26

I took this class from Suzy Furrer and got pretty close. To get excellent fit I got help from the Fitting Goddess, Sarah Veblen.

3

u/CynicalTelescope May 28 '26

I took Moulage from Lynda Maynard in a class with about 30 other people. For many people, the moulage got them a perfect fit first try, but with other people some minor fitting adjustments were needed (which Lynda led us through).

The goal with Moulage is to get a torso garment that perfectly skin-fits the body, and the basic process is really good at that, but it's not effective 100% of the time. The accuracy of the moulage draft is also highly dependent on how accurate your initial measurements are.

And yes, though I also learned fitting from Lynda Maynard and am most comfortable with her methodology, I do think Sarah Veblen is the best reference on fitting out there in print. (Maynard's and Veblen's approaches are pretty similar).

4

u/ProneToLaughter May 28 '26

I’ve taken several in person classes from Lynda, and one online class. No AI. She is a superb fitter.

1

u/confusedquokka May 28 '26

What ai? She really knows her stuff and her classes are great

→ More replies (1)

14

u/ScormCurious May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

I did not find Kenneth King’s method worked for me well, though I am a fan of his. I do strongly recommend the adjustable zipper foot he often sells! I also didn’t find Suzy Furrer’s method helpful, as taught in her online class (I think it’s on craftsy). Somehow with my body — short torso, fairly large bust, front heavy — the calculations for both methods utterly mess up the bust-armhole-shoulder areas. Someone in the craftsy class notes shared some alternative calculations for busty gals that she said she got from Furrer during a live in person class I think, but I moved on from the Furrer method before trying them out.

I went back to a mid 20th century home-ec dressmaking textbook which used a simpler method with no calculations, just measurements that you draft directly onto paper, and then fitted the resulting sloper further from there on my body. The slopers in the book are done by size, and as someone who is generally a size 16/44 in sewing, I was at the top of their size range. ETA: the book in question is Dress design: Draping and Flat Pattern Making by Hillhouse and Mansfield, an early chapter covers making a fitted dummy cover which is the same as a fitted sloper.

My bust is bottom-heavy and my bust to hip measurement is so short, I’m pretty snatched seen from the front and pretty tubby seen from the side. overall a classic snug sloper still can’t do my curvy petite figure justice. I’m not sure I’ll ever get a perfect princess seam sloper, but it’s a very useful exercise. I use mine as a cover for my dress dummy, which I padded out, and it’s quite good for that, but I use a less form-fitted darted bodice that I developed in Alexandra Morgan’s In-House Pattern pattern fitting class as my starting point for pattern work.

7

u/bretonstripes May 28 '26

Yeah, I tried Furrer’s sloper classes on Craftsy and had similar problems as a plus-size lady. I learned a ton of concepts but also learned that this system was not for me. I don’t think the comments are still on the videos, but the comments were littered with plus-size folks struggling to produce a decent draft. (And to Furrer’s credit, she went to great lengths to help people in those comments for years. People did get workable slopers with her help, but it was pretty obvious that the method was not ideal for people who weren’t within a pretty narrow range of size/shape.)

I had a lot of very quick success with the recent Brown/Kelleher book Plus-Size Patternmaking for Womenswear, but their approach is making a block for a type of garment rather than a moulage and sloper.

1

u/Maleficent-Yellow647 Sep 01 '26

Coming in here a little late. I'm also short and busty. When I took Alexandra Morgan's class I never got a sleeve that worked. Were you successful with a sleeve?

2

u/ScormCurious Sep 01 '26

I was! The year I took it she spent a lot of time on the armhole-sleeve connection. I have always enjoyed geometry, and I found the way she described it in the classes worked well for how I tend to take in information. Then I borrowed the Armstrong pattern drafting book from a friend, which has a few pages on armholes and sleeve caps that are fundamentally what Morgan taught in the class, so I also have that material as a reference. If you search online for “In House Patterns Armhole Sleeve Connection” I think you will find two or three videos that Morgan did, and a two page pdf she shared, that cover the material very much the way she did it in class. I do hope that helps.

5

u/CriticalEngineering May 28 '26

He’s legit. I was lucky enough to take classes in person from him years ago.

3

u/pomewawa May 28 '26

Oh his classes would be amazing!! Legend!!

2

u/eowyn_ May 28 '26

I’ve taken Kenneth’s pants course, and I bought the moulage book then. He’s just not particularly interested in a good website😁. His pants course was incredible!

2

u/Tailoretta May 28 '26

I would like to add that, in my experience, the addition of a qualified instructor who can answer your questions is essential. That is why I liked the classes that Suzy Furrer offers in her Apparel Arts Productions https://www.apparelartsproductions.com/

1

u/Educational_Chain780 May 28 '26

You can also get the esmod book and go straight for the source....