Dress Forms

I was looking online to buy a dress form to practice draping at home, and also as a professional tool. As it turned out, not everything is on the web, for stuff here in the Philippines at least.

So i thought I'd just buy from the US and have it shipped here.

I scoured the net for the ideal dress form and from what I gathered, they have come a long way from what I always knew and saw dress forms to be.


Case in point is this Ronis Adjustable Dress Form.




It was the first time I saw a dress form that can change from a US size 6 - 18, or European size 42 - 54. The size adjusts from the smallest bust size of 33" to the largest size of 43", waist from 26" to 35.5", and hips from 35" to 45". Price: $425.

But, a very good contender is this Dress Rite Full Body Dress Form.

The more I read about its features the more convinced I was that this was the dress form I want!

The people at Dress Rite really took into account everything that a dressmaker or fashion designer needs. I especially like the linen cover detail with center and side lines sewn in; no need to have a tape placed at those lines which most of the time could be inaccurate. 

I also read somewhere that their forms are based on measurements taken from thousands of women to determine the correct proportions.

Having its available options would only make the perfect more perfect. But, it's $1650 *sigh*. I guess you'd be getting your money's worth, but still it's way out my pocket's reach.

But, just when I thought it couldn't possibly get any better than that, I learned of Alvanon Dress Forms.

It has all the same features as the Dress Rite Dress Form but in a chicer stand. Plus, aside from the sewn in center and side lines it has a scye line all around the form.

And the bust has a recessed area on the chest where the actual breasts have them, reflecting an actual human body and making draping more accurate. And, it also has a line where the bridge of the bra fall.

Moreover, the form has a panty line!

At $2000 a pop, you're paying for all that and all the body scans they did to get the industry average measurements of people from US and UK. It's unfortunate they don't have Asian size dress forms.


A more affordable alternative would be this PGM Dress Form.

It doesn't have the sewn in center and side lines that I was so crazy about and a lot of the other features the previous two have. But, at $660 it's only a fraction of the cost of the other two and at least it's a whole body dress form.


I'd like to think of it as an investment, even though I haven't decided which to buy. But it's very costly, indeed.




Alvanon dress form photos from www.fashion-incubator.com