A Quick Guide To Retail Child Dress Forms

If you’re new to the tailoring industry, then you need to know this very important fact to make your life easier: you need your own retail child dress forms if you ever hope to make it big in the industry. Many professionals who have made a success for themselves designing outfits and costumes for children will tell you that you absolutely need retail child dress forms to help you make your greatest designs come true. Here’s a quick guide on everything you need to know:

1)      What are retail child dress forms? 

To put it simply, retail child dress forms are body forms of children for outfits that are designed especially for them. They come in all shapes and sizes so it really depends on the size of the child whom you will be designing for. Are you going to design outfits that any 5 year old will be able to wear or are you designing for older kids? It really depends on the sort of outfits you want to make so you will be responsible in choosing the retail child dress forms that are suitable for your needs.

2)      Retail child dress forms vs. mannequins 

Amateur tailors often start out with the notion that retail child dress forms are basically just mannequins in the shape of a child. The truth is, they are vastly different in almost every possible way, from the way they look to the material they are made of and what they can be used for. Essentially you will notice that retail child dress forms come with a hard outer shell that is covered in mostly foam or fabric which allows a tailor to pin fabric to.

Retail child dress forms often only come with the torso but mannequins are mostly full bodied. You can probably tell after learning this that retail child dress forms are for incomplete, work-in-progress outfits while mannequins are used to wear the actual completed outfit itself.

3)      The differences between retail child dress forms and custom made ones 

Retail child dress forms are generic and they are able to accommodate the average size and body structure of a child while custom made child dress forms are made with specific requirements in mind. Needless to say, the latter far outweighs the former in terms of pricing.

4)      What do the terms ‘partially pinnable’ and ‘fully pinnable’ mean? 

Partially pinnableretail child dress forms are composed of a thinner layer of foam which only allows for pins to be inserted at an angle whereas fully pinnable ones allow for you to stick the pin directly into it.