First Year Fashion Student: Draping

Draping means to hang or to adorn the body form with loose fabric. It is the technique of hanging fabric in folds or covering with fabric in loose folds. In draped garments, hemlines are often uneven. The technique of draping creates volume in the build up of fabric, and is a much softer effect than pleating.

As we ourselves learned in the fashion elective, the type and weight of a fabric can considerably change the way it drapes on a garment, as can the shape of the garment itself. Chiffons, muslins, satins and silks are quite frequently used in draped clothing, but many other fabrics can be used as well. More rigid fabrics are unsuitable for this technique if soft and floaty is the desired effect.

I came across the designer Yiqing Yin in a Chinese Vogue that I had at home. Yiqing Yin is from China but she grew up in Paris, France. With her two cultures, she formed a very personal universe, made of natural elegance, grace and harmony, and this is evident in the elegant draping of her clothes.

A statement of intent from the designer herself (above); "I have a very sculptural approach to garment and couture, which I try to modernize by reinterpreting various techniques based on pleating draping, cording, smocks ... It s a sensitive and instinctive approach. My main focus and starting point in creation is the encounter with the fabric, its texture and its movement."