Pattern Showcase: Hannah Culottes

I had the privilege of testing the Hannah Culottes for Pattern Union. I have never heard of them prior to the testing and I wish I knew about them earlier! Pattern Union's Designer Sarah Pondevie is very conscious of being inclusive in her designs and it shows! I had so much fun learning about fitting and altering during her testing process - now I want to test for her all the time =p 

Her pattern uses a T-body fitting system. 

The T-body fitting system categorizes three basic body types to achieve a personalized fit:

• The Even Triangle has balanced proportions and generally can align their measurements with the bust, waist and hips in most charts. 
• The Low Triangle has proportionally bigger hips, a small waist, and shorter, heavier legs.
• The High Triangle body type has little waist definition, slim hips and longer, slim legs.

Size is selected according to your body type and hip measurement. You may need to grade between sizes, but some of the usual fit alterations will have been addressed in the pattern.

Based on her fitting system, I fell into the Even triangle and was able to make my pair of pants without any alterations!! Of course, everyone's body is different and I would still strongly recommend making a muslin first! However, with the 3 systems, it is much much easier to find a size that will fit your body with lesser alterations then u would need to do if you used a more conventional size chart. 

Here's my wearable muslin done in vintage printed polycotton fabric (those are fold lines from sitting down on the way to the park =p This pair of shorts fit perfectly and there's actually no pulling, I need to figure out a way to go out for photoshoots without crumpling my clothes haha):

 

I was really apprehensive originally about how I would be able to make a fitted pair of shorts with no elastic, no interfacing and just an invisible zipper. But the youtube videos included with the pattern made the instructions really easy to follow. Plus she has all the cool tips and real-life examples in the tutorial to guide you in making the pattern work for u. 

Excited to make my full length culottes, I actually went ahead and made my second pair with Kokka Keshiki Office Street Cotton Twill from Nekoneko. This fabric had been sitting in my fabric cupboard for the longest time, and I'm so glad it's out of the cupboard and into my wardrobe!

Isn't it the perfect print for Hannah? 

I even got creative with my poses and tried an "influencer pose" that I found on Instagram. What do you think?

Fun aside, the culottes were very flattering and surprisingly very very comfortable. I wore this for the entire day at work and got a lot of compliments. It didn't feel restricting at all and the construction of the front pockets served as the perfect "tummy controller" giving my silhouette a nice shape. 

I strongly recommend anyone interested in making a pair of flattering woven culottes to give this a try. I made my full length pair in about 3 hours which makes it a relatively fast and easy sew. 

The pattern comes in shorts, 3/4 and full length. You can find out more about the options here.