Other than measuring sleeve and armholes, pants were the most difficult garments to measure when I worked in tech design. Getting the rise to lie flat so that I could measure it’s length was not an easy job and because rise is a crucial POM (point of measure), I could slack. The difference between a back rise of 14 1/4″ and 14 1/2″ was the difference between a wedgie and no wedgie. No Anthropologie customer wants her pair of silk, tweed, or wool trousers riding up her hoo-hah.
Halfway through my stint in tech design, a new manager was hired for our department. With experience from retailers such as Victoria’s Secret, Anna Sui, and American Eagle, she knew her stuff. A POM she asked me to measure on all pants and shorts, a POM that wasn’t in the system (we recorded measurements in a computer), was the width of the rise. According to her, the width must be between 6-7″ at 2″ above the bottom of the rise for a good fit. Because I sewed mostly dresses at the time, I tossed this information to the backburner. But as I’m working on the pattern for the jumper (it’s coming along), her tip has come back to me. She had a lot of insider information so this could be another hidden secret of the tech world. But I ask you, have any of you heard this? Does this rule apply to all sizes (the pants and shorts I measured were a size 6 in RTW).
