Alright, so some of you might be wondering: This girl is a fashion major at university. Surely she has access to REAL mannequins. Why would she want a form made of duct tape? Isn't that a little bit amateur? (Now, some of you probably had no idea I am a fashion major, or you just weren't wondering. Just hold on.)
For those of you who WERE wondering, I do have access to regular dress forms at school. So why am I interested in duct tape dress forms? Well, first off, I don't like having to go in to school to use the mannequins, since I'm a town student, and they right size form is hardly ever available. Also, the sewing lab at my school has really stupid hours.
Second though, I actually PREFER duct tape forms for couture garments. Why? I'm glad you asked! While the mannequins at my school have moveable shoulders, which is really nice for putting clothes on them, they are very standard-shaped. That's cool for ready-to-wear clothing. But for custom clothing, things get difficult.
Let me explain. My favorite design method, especially for custom designs, is draping. (As opposed to flat patterning.) For those of you know don't really know what that means, it means that I use magic to throw fabric at a mannequin and turn it into a piece. Actually, It just means that the garment is shaped directly on a mannequin without a pattern. Duct tape mannequins are just as customized as the model or customer, because you're basically using duct tape to cast their exact shape. So, you know the garment will fit them. Additionally, regular forms tend to have very shallow layers of stuffing before you get to a hard shell. This makes it difficult to stick pins directly into the form. Duct tape forms are stuffed without a hard shell, so you can push pins right in, very easily. This is really convenient for draping, since you need the pieces to stay in place while you're shaping the garment. Personally, my dress forms look like giant voodoo dolls while I'm constructing clothes. I need those pins to stay there. Another big advantage of duct tape forms is they display those custom garments better, due to the custom fit. Displaying a couture garment on duct tape? Isn't that a little trashy? I don't think so. There are plenty of decorative tapes if you want to make things look nice. You can also sew fabric covers for the dress form, or you can decoupage decorative (or minimalist) paper over the duct tape to make it look professional.
So, why do YOU need a duct tape mannequin / dress form? Well, maybe you don't. But if you're into DIY projects, they frequently require pinching / folding / pinning / cutting fabric on yourself, and it's a whole lot easier if you have a body double. If you make a lot of your own clothes, it's nice to have a custom fit, and it's nice to be able to display projects you're not currently wearing. Even if you don't make your own clothes, they make good decorations! You get to feel really fancy if you display your favorite ensembles on a mannequin, and all your friends will be jealous. Or, you can display things you don't get to wear frequently, such as prom dresses, wedding dresses, bride's maid dresses, costume / cosplay outfits, or any other ensembles that you obviously wouldn't wear every day, instead of putting them in storage or hiding them in the back of your closet.
Well, now that we've covered that, let's move on to the real purpose of this post. I'm not going to actually tell you HOW to make one of these things. How rude. Why not? Because there are TONS of tutorials on the internet. I don't need to just be a repeat. This post is all about how I'm making these dress forms BETTER. The basics are the same. I have 5 tips for you to make sure that you have the best duct tape dress form that you can!
Tip #1: Wear a giant trash bag under the tape. Some tutorials will tell you to wear a t-shirt that you don't like under the tape. You cut through the shirt and it is destroyed and lost when you remove the form from yourself. I don't care if you don't like the shirt. That's a waste. There are much cooler things you can do with shirts. Especially shirts that you don't like. That's why I suggest wearing a cheap trash bag under the tape. The best length for dress forms / mannequins that aren't a whole body is to cut off approximately where the fingertips reach on the thighs and go up part of the way up the neck, and out to the edge of the shoulders. Because whatever you're wearing under the tape will shift as you put the tape on, you might end up needing two bags, or perhaps one trash bag with a grocery bag taped to the bottom. But if you use shirts, this will ruin two shirts potentially, and that's just sad. And let me tell you, you do have to wear something under the tape. I don't even want to think how painful it would be to get the form off without a barrier in between the tape and your body. Oh, and girls, wear a bra under the bag and the tape. Just be really careful when you cut the form off. That way whatever garments will fit you with a bra on, whether it's built in or separate. I guess if you'd rather not, that's your business.
Tip #2: WRAP THE TAPE COMFORTABLY! People. This is HUGELY important. The first time I made a duct tape form, I wrapped it really tightly because I thought that all the layers of tape would build up and make all my pieces too big. Guess what? They didn't. What ended up happening is my clothes were too tight and I had to let everything out. Not cool. Another reason to put the tape on comfortably is you'll squish your body into the wrong shape. My first form was really lopsided, lumpy, and weird-looking. Tragic. This is especially important if you're a girl, which is probably the majority of you (or at least your models and customers.) Remember what I said about wrapping too tightly changing the shape? You want your chest to be the right shape. If you wrap too tightly, you'll lose the definition of the chest and end up with an awkward uniboob look, and nothing you make will fit. This is just a NO. In order to make sure you have that shape right, you must use pre-cut pieces of tape. It also might be helpful to carefully cut the pieces down the length of the tape, that way you can be more precise. This technique is also helpful if you're wanting to make a mannequin with separate legs instead of a true dress dorm.
Tip #3: Don't skimp on the tape. My first dress form was only 2 layers thick, which meant it didn't keep it's shape well. I've had a lot more success with 4-5 layers. I wrap 3 layers while it's on the model, and then seal up the holes, and add another layer over the whole thing. A bonus tip about the top layer: wrap it the cross direction of your other layers. (Up and down instead of side to side.) This adds strength to the dress form. If you wrap all the layers in the same direction, gravity will pull your mannequin apart. Here's a work-in-progress example of wrapping cross grain:
(The tragic dress form with the red tape did not have cross-grain tape, and kept pulling apart. That's why there's red tape. I had run out of the silver tape, and I kept having to repair it with the red.) Another reason to add a layer over the top after the dress form is sealed up is because sometimes after you've stuffed it, you find spots that didn't get enough stuffing. For me, this is almost always the neck and chest. I frequently have to cut it open again, and add more stuffing to those places. I tape it back up when I'm done, but the final layer helps make sure that won't pop open. Wrap a cross-grain layer even if you're going to decoupage over it all. There is no such thing as too strong when it comes to these things.
Tip #4: Don't spend a ton of money on fancy stuffing. You have to pack the stuffing in really tightly, so you almost always end up needing more than you expected. Some tutorials will tell you to stuff your form with Fiber Fill. Well, you'll need a TON of that stuff, and it's not always very cheap. Others will tell you to use wadded newspaper, but that's not always very effective. An easy filling is destroyed hosiery. My mom had a ton of stretched out and torn pantyhose and tights around the house, and she was perfectly happy to let me get rid of them for her. I also use fabric scraps that are too small or ugly to do anything with. A great place to find these is around a serger if you have one. Yarn, string, and thread scraps are also good. If that's not enough to fill up your form, my go to stuffing is paper from the shredder. If you don't have enough paper shreds, go through your junk mail stack. I'm sure you'll have plenty of shreds in no time. With so many options for filling, there's no reason to spend money on it unnecessarily. Admittedly, sometimes I have to use some fiber fill when adding stuffing to the neck and chest, but if you don't want to do that, save your fabric and string scraps for that. It's just really hard to get paper shreds in re-opened holes.
Tip #5: Put something solid in the neck to help it keep the right shape. I didn't think about this when I made my first duct tape dress form, Marie Antoinette, and she had a tragic, untimely ending. See:
This is just sad. Duct tape is pretty strong, but it's not THAT strong. What I suggest to put in the neck is a peanut butter jar lid. It's about the right shape as it is, but if it's not quite big enough, you can always use another kind of lid, or you could wrap a bit of duct tape around the outside of the lid until it's wide enough. Here's a dress form I made with a lid in the neck:
Isn't that so much better?
It's also helpful to put something sturdy inside the shoulders, waist, and hips. I suggest hangers. If you don't want to waste your good hangers, there are plenty of stores that give you the hangers that come on the clothes. (Kohl's is one I can think of off the top of my head.) You can also use broken ones, like if the hook is broken off. Regular hangers are good for the shoulders and hips, and small skirt/pants hangers are good for the waist. If you can't find one small enough, you can just break a cheap hanger down to the right size. If you don't put these in to stabilize the form, the shoulders might droop, and the waist and hips will round out. What I mean by that is, they'll squish in at the sides, and out at the font and back. You don't want a sausage dress form.
I really hope this was helpful for you! If you would like to share any additional tips, or tell me whether these worked for you, I'd really love to hear it. Leave me comments! If you thought these tips were useful, share the love! Share this post with your friends! I really do love hearing your feedback! It's nice to hear that what I'm doing is worth my time! Now go out there and create something amazing!
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