Friday Freebie: Lingerie Patternmaking and Grading Simplified

Friday Freebie: Lingerie Patternmaking and Grading Simplified: A Manual for the Student and the Worker

By Jack Kirschner

Published in 1950.

*Gasp* an ankle! Quick toss a blanket over her before someone suffers a paroxysm!

If you are concerned about the copyright status of anything I post, READ THIS before penning angry missives to me (what is this, the Victorian Age?) regarding ‘the nature of copyright’ please read carefully through the information in the following links:

Global copyright terms.

Searching Google’s online repository of pre-1978 copyright records.

Searching the Copyright Office’s records from 1978-current (database of active copyrights).

Bear in mind that just because someone’s selling a book does not mean that the book is still under copyright/ they own the copyright to the book. Everything in the public domain (i.e. no longer under copyright) can be printed and sold by anyone. Many companies currently sell print copies of expired copyright/ public domain books (just Google print-on-demand – these books are sold on sites like Abebooks, the Book Depository, and by independent suppliers). Modern Pattern Design by Harriet Pepin is one such book. It has been out of copyright for years- some publishers sell it as is, others add a couple of pages/ a chapter to ‘put the book in context’, copyright the annotated version and sell it. One of the publishers doing the latter is the Centre for Pattern Design (I have been in touch with them about their copyright on Pepin’s book and they only own the copyright on one such contextual version-which means if I come across a scanable version of the original I will scan it and make it available).

I put up these posts because I feel this information should be made freely available to everyone that can make use of it. Modern sewing/ pattern-making books can be prohitively expensive and are generally not as thorough in their treatments of the same topics as their vintage/ antiquarian counterparts.

Books that fall under this category/clause of US copyright law are the only ones I make available:

I.e. books which are no longer covered by copyright. If you have proof that this is not the case (for example, documentation or images supporting current copyright details for this version) please do send me a link. I’ve listed the databases I use to check for copyright specifications. If you know of others I would appreciate links to those as well.

If you are concerned that the book in question may be covered by a different copyright in your country, you have two options: look up the copyright status of the book for your country using the ‘Global‘ link above or, don’t download the book. However, if you download it and then send me a shitty email regarding ‘the nature of copyright’ I will banish you to the spam folder of isolation (for being a total hypocrite/ troll. Yes. I analyse metrics. So I know.)

*sigh* And now for some information about the book. It covers pattern making for Lingerie. From ye olde days (1950 is ye olde) so the styles and techniques used will be fairly different from those in vogue today (due to stylistic changes, technological advances and the availability of materials that only existed in Science Fiction back in the day).

Get it.

More free dressmaking sh*t here [seriously- Millinery and furs too. No I am not sorting it and picking goodies to feature. Some idiot suggested I should run around leaving comments linking all the Friday Freebies to all the blog posts out there mentioning said books. Because, obviously, I have nothing better to do. And Google hasn’t been invented yet. The only reason said idiot wasn’t rewarded with a swift kick to the head is because I don’t (yet) know where it lives].

Previously on Friday Freebies.

Disclaimer: All non-self-generated images remain copyright of their original owners and are used here for purposes of illustration, humour and review. Image of lady in slip from Lingerie Parisienne by Juliette Morel. Featured image depicting measuring for dressmaking from Dress Selection and Design by Marion S. Hillhouse.