The male and female body:
morphology and proportions
In patternmaking, many decisions are taken for granted.
One of them is the male and female body in patternmaking from which human morphology is studied.
Which body is the right one for this purpose: the male or the female.
The question seems simple.
The answer is not.
And yet, on this choice depends the stability of the entire system: proportions, measurements, corrections and the overall coherence of patternmaking.
This is the starting point of the new video published on TEVIPA’s YouTube channel.
Why do not all bodies serve as a study base?
When the body is analysed for technical purposes, observing its shape is not enough.
It must be possible to read the structure.
There are bodies that facilitate this reading.
And others that make it more difficult.
The difference does not lie in sex, but in the interference of volumes, in how they are distributed and in how they affect measurement and the interpretation of proportions.
In the video, it is explained why this issue is crucial and why, historically, patternmaking has chosen a specific base to begin with.
Proportions, history and method: what is not usually explained
Human body proportions were not born in modern manuals.
They come from centuries of observation, representation and comparison.
Classical authors described internal relationships of the body that still appear today — sometimes unconsciously — in patternmaking systems.
Why do certain fractions repeat?
Why are some “corrective fractions” used?
Are they arbitrary?
Why do different systems arrive at similar results?
In the video, this historical thread is connected for the first time with the technical language of patternmaking.
When geometry is not enough
The human body is not a perfect figure.
It is not circular.
It is not elliptical.
It is not symmetrical.
And yet, for centuries, proportional systems have worked.
Not because of mathematical precision, but because of morphological effectiveness.
This nuance — essential to understand why a pattern works or not — is developed in the video.
The complete video
This text does not intend to give answers.
It raises the problem.
The explanations, diagrams and complete logic are developed in the video.
👉 You can watch the complete video on TEVIPA’s YouTube channel.
If you are interested in understanding why patternmaking is the result of history
and of the scientific recognition of artists’ knowledge,
and not of a sum of numbers and fractions learned by heart,
if you want to stop repeating methods and start thinking patternmaking freely, enter the video.