Garment Copying: Recreating a Beloved Piece of Clothing

People bring us clothes they cannot replace: a jacket whose cloth is no longer woven, a dress that fits when nothing in the shops does, a coat a parent wore for thirty years. Garment copying is the method for those pieces. We treat the original as a pattern source — measuring, tracing and, where necessary, carefully opening a seam — then recut the design in new cloth. It is not a way to reproduce a branded collection for sale, and we will not copy a piece in order to pass it off as the maker’s own. It is a way to keep a personal garment alive when the fabric has failed or when you need a second one in a different colour or season.

How a copy is taken

The first appointment is a reading of the original. We note the grain, the seam allowances, the lining, the closures and any quirks that make the piece sit well on you — a slightly high left shoulder, a shortened sleeve, a dart that was added later. If the garment is still wearable, we prefer not to unpick it fully. Measurements, rub-offs and a toile can capture most of a simple shape. If the cloth is too fragile to keep wearing, or if the construction is too complex to guess from the outside, we may open a lining or a seam, copy the panel, and sew the original back so you do not lose the piece you arrived with.

Then we cut a toile and fit it as if it were a new commission. A copy that is only traced will copy the original’s faults as well as its virtues, including stretch that has grown into the elbows or a hem that was never quite level. The fittings are where we decide what to preserve and what to correct. You may want the same silhouette in a heavier wool, or a summer version in linen. The pattern can accept those changes; the original’s character should still be recognisable when you put the new piece on.

Cloth, limits and expectation

Finding cloth is often the longest part. We can work from a mill swatch, from a length you already own, or from a search for something close. An exact vintage match is rare, and we will say so. Prints and jacquards that were made for one season may not exist. In that case we look for a cloth with the same weight and drape rather than a surface that only looks similar in a photograph. At Altbes a garment copy is priced as original work, because it is: pattern, fittings, making and finish. What you receive should feel like the piece you loved, cut for the body you have now, in cloth that can take another decade of wear.