Made-to-Order, Made-to-Measure and Bespoke: What Actually Happens to Your Measurements?

The manufacturer already has developed patterns covering different sizes, proportions and, depending on the system, different drops or body configurations.

Your measurements help determine which existing configuration is most appropriate.

You may then choose cloth, lining, buttons, lapels, pockets and other details. The garment can therefore be individually ordered and highly personalised without its underlying pattern being individually created or modified for your body.

Made-to-measure also begins with an established block or pattern.

The important difference is that the existing pattern is modified for the individual client's measurements and fitting requirements before the cloth is cut.

Selecting the closest existing size or drop is therefore not the same process as changing an established pattern specifically for one person's frame.

Both made-to-order and made-to-measure can produce very good clothing. The difference is what happens to the pattern before production begins.

This is where the subject becomes particularly interesting.

Modern apparel manufacturing has advanced enormously.

During visits to major manufacturing operations in Guangzhou, China, I was shown production systems capable of processing individually ordered garments on an extraordinary scale.

I came away impressed.

Digital pattern libraries, sophisticated production planning and automated cutting technology allow factories to manage enormous variations in size, drop, cloth and styling while maintaining remarkable efficiency.

From the customer's perspective, they may have selected a particular cloth and placed an individual order in Perth.

Inside a large manufacturing system, however, that order can become part of a much larger production process.

During my factory visits, I was shown how orders could be accumulated, organised and grouped for efficient cutting and manufacture.

That is not necessarily a criticism.

It is extraordinarily clever manufacturing.

But consumers should understand the distinction between individual ordering and individual patternmaking.

They are not the same thing.

Industrial manufacturers do not need to reinvent a pattern every time an order arrives.

They have already invested heavily in developing patterns capable of accommodating a large range of bodies.

Size describes part of that equation.

Drop helps describe another.

Together with other production variables, these established configurations allow a manufacturer to place a customer into a much more appropriate starting shape than simply choosing a conventional ready-to-wear size.

During my factory visits, I was shown production tags identifying information such as size and drop as garments moved through the manufacturing system.

This was part of what made the scale of the operation so interesting to me. Individual customer orders could be organised within an established production framework rather than requiring a new pattern to be drafted manually for every garment entering the factory.

Those are different production methods.

There is another way of achieving an individually fitted result.

A garment can be manufactured from an established production pattern and subsequently altered once it reaches the client.

Sleeves can be adjusted. Trouser lengths corrected. Waists and seats changed. Jackets can sometimes be taken in or reshaped, depending on their construction.

The finished garment may therefore fit considerably better than when it first arrived.

But alteration of the finished garment is not the same thing as alteration of the pattern before the garment was cut.