Make Your Own Custom Dress Form
Used in the world’s most exclusive couture houses, a personal dress form can transform how you approach fit and garment making. As bodies change or fit challenges arise, confidence can slip. This course invites you to embrace your body as it is and create clothes that fit beautifully and feel truly your own.
What You’ll Learn
This course is designed for anyone who would like a dress form that conforms to their measurements and body type. A calico bodice is made and fitted to the student, then used as a guide to pad a purchased dress form so it accurately reflects their proportions.
A purchased dress form is used, along with either a padding kit (available from the college) or wadding, to bring the form into alignment with the fitted calico bodice.
Suitable for all skill levels
What to Expect
Our courses are open to all skill levels and held in our Pymble studio on Sydney’s North Shore. We offer morning, afternoon, full-day, and evening options, running Monday through Saturday.
Classes run once weekly for 3–3.5 hours across an 11-week term. Courses are typically priced in the $900–$1,000 range, depending on the number of hours.
For all of your supplies for this class — including your dress form — our friends at JK Trading are pleased to offer a 10% discount on purchases for CAFA students.
Class Times & Booking
You’ll be able to view upcoming class dates and pricing before confirming your booking.
Not quite ready to book?
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Personal Dress Form | Course Summary
Students learn how to customise a purchased dress form so it accurately reflects their individual measurements and body shape. The process uses a fitted calico bodice as the reference for padding and shaping the form.
Guidelines for centre front, centre back, and waist are applied to assist with fitting and balance, resulting in a dress form similar to those used in couture houses for individual clients. A pattern is provided, and where time permits, students may also construct soft arms to allow assessment of garments with sleeves.
The time required to complete the padded form will vary depending on how closely the student’s measurements align with the purchased dress form.
This course includes:
Drafting a bodice pattern for each student
Making a calico bodice sample
Contouring the bodice to fit the student and refining the pattern
Assessing the dress form and planning the most effective padding strategy
Using a padding kit or wadding to adjust dress form measurements
Creating and applying a compression layer based on the bodice draft
Covering the dress form with a calico layer made from the bodice draft
Attaching centre front, centre back, and waist guidelines for fitting
Cutting and sewing arm patterns (time permitting.