The Great White Whale

The Great White Whale is the project that started me sewing in 2014. As a transgender chap, I struggle finding flattering shirts: they generally make me look like a kid wearing his dad's hand-me-down for painting class.

How hard could learning to make patterns from scratch, reinventing the shirt and then constructing it be?

Ha. Ha ha ha ha.

So the Whale is an ongoing project, and my original grandiose hopes of releasing free patterns/draft systems for trans chaps to make their own is dead as Ahab. So it goes. My new focus is trying to produce at least one item of clothing that looks OK. Meanwhile, I've learned a ton of stuff about patternmaking and construction, and can make pretty much anything which isn't tailored menswear.

"I am the man; I suffered, I was there." - Whitman

The primary problem with menswear for trans men is this:

Cisgender men are rectangular, with very small differences between their chest, waist and hip measurements. Cisgender women are triangular - they have a larger chest, a small waist, and then large hips again. Even though bodies vary a lot, these proportions are generally true. Some trans people hit the genetic jackpot; and hormone treatments and trips to the gym can help too, but it's a bit of a lottery how far an individual body changes.

My gender identity is "coward", so for the time being I'm indistinguishable from women.

I don't want to throw my trans bros under the
bus about body stuff. Men with the courage to
transition can get far closer to a normative male 
body than I am at present. This is @laith_ashley 

Men's shirts are a straight line from the armpit to the hip, sometimes with a slight curve added. A straight line from my armpit hits my hipbone - men's shirts either fit at the hip and are too big for my chest, or are nice at the chest and don't fit over the hip. There are also other problems, like getting a shoulder-seam which sits on my shoulder, and sleeves which aren't baggy. Those are the three primary problems the Whale hopes to solve.

I owe a lot of my inspiration to this article, and it's my top recommendation for trans readers who don't sew. And for those who do. Because the Whale will never be defeated.

(Gabriel is also very kind if you email him; thanks friend; still not found my courage to follow your advice)

Version 1: Vogue 8889 men's formal shirt

Sewn up. Obviously, doesn't fit at all. Learnt stuff like "you need an iron and fabric scissors to make clothes".

Version 2: Vogue 8889 mens formal shirt

Attempt to make it smaller. Nowhere near successful, no pattern grading skills or even knowledge of the word "pattern grading" so it's mostly just guesses and pinning.

Both versions were made at the London Hackerspace, and it was a bad experience all told. Collective responsibility means no responsibility: people picked up my fabric scissors without asking and used them for all sorts, so no wonder the Hackspace's pair were so useless etc etc etc.

Version 3: flat pattern drafting (for men)

Me, once the Whale is defeated (artist's impression)

Several attempts to draft a pattern with my measurements plugged into drafts designed for cis men. Totally off the mark. Start appreciating how different key elements of the body are different between men and women: shoulder length, hip to chest to waist ratio. And the ways that patterns are based on assumed proportions between measurements. Spend some time trying to adapt this draft method for trans bodies, but finally accept I'm totally out of my depth at how to do that.

Version 4: Burda 7136 formal women's shirt

Also doesn't fit nicely. Even though people advised that using a pattern would be better, for me it just reinforces my desire to learn pattern making. I hate and struggle with making good pattern adjustments from other people's patterns. It hurts my brain: if buying a packet shirt still means I get an ugly, loose baggy shirt sleeve, then I might as well continue with my efforts.

Version 5: draping the Yellow Whale

The nature of my work requires me to google "hot men in suits". For research.
My partner and I agree that Idris Elba tops that list

One good thing about Whale 4 was an acceptance that I had to start with patterns for afab/cisgender female bodies, because the proportions closer match my body. So I finally flat drafted a bodice+skirt block, which fitted me perfectly, put it onto my mannequin and then stuffed it to finally, finally have a mannequin at my size and shape.

One bad thing that happened in this period is a binder accident. Binders are compression garments worn by both trans men and cisgender men with gynecomastia to produce a flatter, masculine chest. They're not especially good for you, as they compress the sternum and lungs even as they help one's self esteem and confidence. After two years of binding, my chest gives out: my sternum aches constantly, it cracks and pops like knuckles, and even wearing loose bras make my lungs fill with fluid. Around the same time, I stop changing out of my pajamas or leaving the house. Bind safely, kids.

On top of other Whale fit problems, I also have to contend with a pair of B cups distorting the front even more than it was already distorted.

But somehow, all those failed garments had taught me a bunch. Whale 5 fitted. The primary adjustments I made were:

• Many shirts have one curved side seam. Making a gore shirt gave me three side seams on each side, lots of shaping for hiding material
• My back darts runs all the way from the shoulder blades to the base of the shirt. They are oddly shaped, but allow me to have enough fabric to cover my larger ass and hips in some places, and hiding excess in others
• Draping on the mannequin allowed me to respond to my unusual body on the fly, and spot fit problems at once. Going forward, I'm going to use draping for any genderweird tailoring, because for me it is the only way to get a good fit without having to work around the expectations and proportions in flat patterns. 
• I compared the pieces I was making to the Vogue pattern and various menswear manuals I had collected to choose the right design proportions: earlier work wasn't wasted.

Draping the shirt felt easy and intuitive. I felt like is finally passed a lot of hurdles around basic shape and fabric handling, without even noticing that I'd done it. I took my mannequin out onto the street on a sunny morning, before anyone was awake and stretched the fabric out on the pavement. It felt easy.

Version 6: Grey Whale

Grey whale was my first shirt made from the draped pattern. It fits ok! But it's not the final shirt yet. The armscyes are all over the place, and the torso doesn't quite fit right. Additionally, my paper pattern pieces and my fabric pattern pieces aren't the same size; and the Grey Whale fits differently to the draped Yellow Whale. Clearly I'm still not getting basic construction techniques like "being neat" right. 

I also drew up the Aldrich women's shirt draft as a comparison. It's a lot bigger than my drape, and I can't really understand where it went wrong.

Version 7: Cream Whale

Meanwhile, because my life is a joke, actual
menswear starts using princess seams.

Yellow Whale was also supposed to be the last toile, this one to fix the armscyes. But I'm still not happy with the fit. It sits oddly, in no small part because I've got hips like Kim Kardashian, and boobs. So it goes.

I've noticed that the side seam on Grey Whale doesn't actually match my side seam, and the back seam is also so far back it's like an arrow pointed at my butt. I felt-tip an armscye line onto my actual skin to try and judge it right on the shirt. Yellow whale also fits OK, but somewhere in this process I took away all the fabric that used to be in the back darts.  My partner thinks it's too tight across the chest and needs to be looser, but when I move my arms the armscye comes away from the body - which isn't a good look. Maybe I can absorb a bit more bust into my front seam?

I'm thinking a lot about fit. Even though slim fit is in, I don't actually think the chap on the right looks good in that shirt. Shirts are like this goldilocks garment which grace the body - but aren't skintight, but also aren't baggy. They really rely on the chap having a normative body to begin with. Menswear is totally unforgiving. Womenswear uses colour, different fashion waists, frills and gathers, and all sorts of shapewear to change and play with the body. Even something like a Dior skirt distorts the shape of the body. I don't want to talk nonsense, because I know my transfeminine sisters struggle with fit too - maybe it seems easier because I'm just more used to female fit and fashion - but a 50s circle skirt plus petticoats grants you hips and a nipped waist just by proportion; meanwhile, more freedom with colour and texture can create a striking visual impression even if the fit isn't there. 

Older shirts were cut more loosely. Check out that baggy
armscye. 

Menswear has none of that. You have your body, and then you have an inch of ease, and then how much you spend on your tailor. You have very subtle shape shifts in classic garments, and as my ex explained, a choice of navy, grey, maybe brown, occasionally black. Drag queens use padding to enhance their hips, and even cis women use girdles, push up bras, and Bridget Jones pants to cinch the fashionable shape: but there aren't equivalents for men, nor can I really imagine what you could design for this purpose.

I'm pretty sure that I could make a great shirt for my partner at this stage (he's cisgender), but I still don't understand how to work this on my body. I am really aware that "curve-hugging" is a female fashion norm I'm struggling to let go of; and yet looser toiles look horribly like I've got something to hide. I wouldn't look like the man in the Hathaway shirt in something looser. I'd look sloppy. 

Even though it's counter-intuitive, I think a slimmer fit is still the best choice, because of the way shirts are supposed to grace the body. And yet here's Male Pattern Boldness encouraging men to choose looser shirts, and I understand what he's saying. I don't know how to cut a shirt for my body that just looks like a normal bloke's shirt. I keep wanting to ask a tailoring forum, but I don't think they would understand my body as well as I can.

Version 8: ?????

"All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby-Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it" - Melville