Haslam Dressmaking System

The Haslam System of Dressmaking is a comprehensive pattern drafting method used to create garments based on one's specific measurements. Using 14 body measurements, you first create your foundation pattern using the Chart and instructions found in the Foundation Drafting Book.

The Chart is similar to a dressmaking/tailor's square and is a template of strategically placed holes, curves, lines and measurements that will (hopefully) enable me to make patterns customized to my body’s measurements.

The foundation pattern is the "base" design. Once the foundation is complete, you can create patterns for any of the garments using the instructions and diagrams in the book.

A little background information:

Haslam is a "chart" system. A chart is a 19th- and early 20th-century term for what we would call a sloper or block pattern. Charts came as a cardboard or wooden set of the most basic pattern pieces in the most common cut for the given era. (Which, by the way, changed periodically, so a chart for one era is likely to have too early or late a cut for another era.)

Usually charts were for bodices, because they required the most fitting, but a few skirt charts were manufactured. The charts had a means of grading the pattern to different standard sizes, usually lines and holes to aid the dressmaker in tracing the right outline and dart placement. Charts were manufactured partly for home dressmakers who made clothes for several different family members, but especially for professional dressmakers without much real training or the time or money to obtain it. In the 19th century, dressmaking was a common fallback profession for women suddenly thrown into the job market by widowhood or orphanhood.

I have the Chart and three Foundation Drafting books - one for the early-mid 1940s fashions, one for mid-late 1940s fashions and Foundation Book 2, which is used mainly in combination with the mid-late 1940s and 1950s Books of Draftings. I will be working my way through the Book of Draftings No. 22 (from the 1950s), which contains draftings for:

fifteen dresses
beach dress
shorts and bikini top
swimsuit coverup top
four suits
four coats

If anyone owns and/or uses this system, I would love to hear from you!