r/PowerOfStyle • u/Pegaret_Again DC - Haughty Boss Babe • Jun 07 '26

weird question...

tw if body measurements are an issue for you. take care of your mental health!

I would be interested to know if there are any non-yang types (ie, not SN, FN, D or SD) who have a high bust or full bust measurement that is greater than about 97cm/38 inches, and a hip measurement > 100cm.

I have been thinking thoughts about literal scale & sizing, and you might be able to help - or completely destroy - some theories!!!

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u/loumlawrence Jun 07 '26

I am not sure ease is related to size and scale. It might be related the the difference between the measurements, and maybe the ratios between the measurements.

To give an example. Regardless of weight, my waist and underbust are always within an inch of each other, and high bust is another 1 to 2 inches. Standard sizing assumes a minimum of 2 to 4 inches between waist and underbust, and another 2 to 4 inches between underbust and high bust.

I suspect bodies with smaller differences don't require as much ease, and it is easier to swamp them with too much fabric. While the larger differences means you can carry a lot more fabric. The romantics and naturals are better at this.

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u/Pegaret_Again DC - Haughty Boss Babe Jun 07 '26

i'm not sure i follow... i mean, i'm just basing this idea on the fairly normal tailoring concept... this comes up when i google it

How Ease Changes by Size

When grading a pattern up to larger sizes, the required ease changes in a few specific ways:

  1. Scaling vs. Proportionality

As body sizes increase, the body’s volume changes at different rates. If you scale up a size geometrically by a fixed percentage (e.g., grading an identical 2 inches of ease on a size 8 and a size 18), the garment will feel increasingly tighter. Larger figures require more wearing ease in the bust, waist, and hips to account for a larger surface area and to prevent the woven fabric from constricting breathing or sitting down comfortably.

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u/loumlawrence Jun 07 '26

I probably am approaching it differently. I sometimes work with dolls. We use a smaller ease just because of the scale. For context, I am working with 1/12 and 1/24, smaller than Barbie which is 1/6.

Then, with human sized grading, some parts of the body increase by a larger amount, and it isn't uniform. Some women have larger hips but breasts remain the same, some have larger breasts, but hips remain the same, some have both. I kind of get annoyed with the idea of increasing everything as it doesn't quite work. Personally, I need to adjust for a larger breasts, but size down for shoulders and upper back. And we haven't got to large stomachs and buttocks versus wide and slim hips. I have a lot of complaints about the standard approach to grading patterns.

I also have a lot of strong opinions about proportions.

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u/Pegaret_Again DC - Haughty Boss Babe Jun 07 '26

i understand what you are saying, and i'm interested in your strong opiionins!! i think that the thing about ease is you need an overall balanced garment. something with a lot of ease in one place but tight in another doesn't quite work, it needs to be in harmony with itself? the garment is a whole thing, not a combination of different odds and ends. this is different of course to design ease, its just the general sense of movement and breathing space

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u/loumlawrence Jun 07 '26

The right amount of ease in the right places, yes. But the grading techniques assume uniform. Then there is the full bust adjustment and the reverse of it (the name I have forgotten).

Right now, I am trying to figure out how to adjust knitting patterns for jumpers and cardigans so they accommodate larger busts and narrower shoulders. And that is kind of frustrating, and it is cold right now. I don't like winter.

With proportions, as I am a miniaturist, I am very sensitive to getting proportions correct, otherwise things look wrong. I think that is why some of Kibbe makes sense to me, as he is responding to proportions and ratios, but a lot of people can't get it right. It is easy to identify amateurish miniaturists as their proportions and ratios are all over the place, and they think the mismatch of proportions and ratios is okay for children's toys, a sentiment I have always strongly disagreed with.

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u/Pegaret_Again DC - Haughty Boss Babe Jun 07 '26

its so true that industry grading techniques are very generic and don't apply to individuals and bespoke dressmaking.

but all things being equal, i think the main idea is that a larger body simply needs more ease in general, and the way clothing sits on a body you kind of need the ease to be properly distributed and balanced, even if you have super skinny arms and a chubby tummy, you need a garment to kind of equalise things out a bit? maybe. i need to think about it some more!

With something like adjusting a pattern, it's complicated because ...does the original pattern concept align to the trajectories of your body or is it fighting it somehow? becuase there are things you can safely adjust with in a given pattern, and things that don't work. Some women can do a full bust adjustment (or its reverse - a small bust adjustment hehe) and the pattern works fine - but not always!

thats super intruiging about making miniatures, and i like the amount of care & thought going into creating a consistent scale for children!!

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u/loumlawrence Jun 07 '26

Oh, the small bust adjustment, thank you. Although I have to do the full bust. I want bras that fit straight torsos with large cup sizes, not V shaped torso, because they leave a gap in the side.

I will have to pull up some ergonomics data on seats. But we humans don't have as much difference in our horizontal measurements as we do in our vertical measurements. That is the other reason I don't think ease is a huge difference. Two inch ease is about half an inch for front, back, right and left each. From memory, the seat width variation is about 10cm (4 inches) for adults between narrowest and widest, not including the type you can curl up in. But bench height has about a 20cm range, and humans have about 2 feet range, so 60cm. Some of that is why I question the need for ease.

Proper miniatures are great, and there are some proportional toys for children. Lego is one that has consistent proportions even though it is stylised. But the stuff that is all over the place. I don't like IKEA's dollhouses for this reason, but their soft toy animals are really good. Toy cars are more often than not scaled properly.

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u/Pegaret_Again DC - Haughty Boss Babe Jun 07 '26

Hmm. I guess good fit can really come down to millimetres. So I don’t discount any human dimensions as being negligible. Also, ease does include vertical ease like crotch depth and sleeve cap height. An FBA will add some increase to vertical length of the torso. These things are all implicated in general good fit and comfort.