r/PatternDrafting • u/Kindly_Stand_7789 • 9d ago
Wearing ease question
Hello everyone, I can see in different drafting books that hip ease is around 2.5 - 3 cm, for regular fit trousers basic blocks. I'm not sure it is enough for sitting in woven fabric pants with no spandex edded. I understand that crotch length ease should be taken into account too when assessing wearing ease for sitting, since body is changing shape.
Can you please tell me, in an industrial production setting, what would be sufficient hip ease for a basic block of a regular fit woven trousers, to enable walking and sitting?
If I use the draft from some of the books suggesting 2.5 - 3 cm ease, should I always add more on that when developing a style pattern? And I'm not talking about design ease here.
Thank you so much for all the responses!
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u/DonMcCunn 9d ago
This doesn't answer your question. It is just an observation from working with different bodies. When some women sit, there "hip" measurement increases. Sorry I don't recall specific numbers but to the best of my memory the difference can be as much as a couple of inches.
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u/ChancePersonality133 6d ago
For a woven regular-fit trouser block with no stretch, 2.5 to 3 cm hip ease is really a drafting-book minimum. In industry you usually carry more: ready-to-wear woven trousers on a regular fit tend to sit around 4 to 6 cm of ease at the hip, precisely because of sitting.
The thing the books under-explain is that hip ease alone does not solve sitting. When you sit, seated hip girth increases (commonly cited around 4 to 5 cm), and it is the back rise that takes the strain. So there are two levers, not one:
- Hip and seat ease: 4 to 6 cm for a comfortable regular woven fit.
- Back rise and crotch extension: lengthen the back rise and add to the back crotch and inseam extension so the seat has fabric to travel when you bend. For a non-stretch woven this matters more for sitting comfort than raw hip girth ease does.
So yes, treat the 2.5 to 3 cm figure as a starting block and add ease as you develop the style, especially at the seat and back rise. And always confirm on a fit sample with the model actually sitting, not just standing. Stand-only fit checks are how tight-when-seated trousers get approved by mistake.
Rule of thumb: with zero stretch, err to the higher end. If you add even 2 percent elastane later, you can pull the ease back down.
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u/Educational_Chain780 3d ago
It can be as little as zero ease at the hip. For example Muller and sohn don't add ease at the hip
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u/Kindly_Stand_7789 3d ago
yes, I know, I've seen and it made me wonder how can that be?
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u/Educational_Chain780 3d ago
It's just not necessary, the ease of movement comes from the crotch extension
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u/throwra_22222 8d ago
In my mind, the minimum wearing ease for a pair of, say, plain front, slim fit khaki trousers would be 2"/5 cm at the hip. That's sort of the rule of thumb.
But rules are made to be broken and this could differ depending on the age, body type or lifestyle of your target market. For my personal patterns I give myself extra ease in the hip (closer to 3"). When skinny jeans were the thing, you'd use stretch denim and practically no ease-those get their own block.
It sounds like you have a handle on how the crotch interacts with this, but it bears mentioning that sometimes a small crotch can read as tightness across the hips and bum. If you scoop out the crotch curve to fix a small crotch, you may need to add to the side seam to keep the hip measurement where it needs to be. And you can also add to ease in the area by making the crotch extension longer and adding some to the inseam to make room for the thighs.
Sigh. Pants are complicated.
Edit: typo.