This invention relates generally to the production of clothing and more particularly to clothing manufactured to fit a specific customer.
For years, a problem in making custom-fitted apparel in a cost effective manufacturing system has been determining how to capture a person""s body dimensions so that a piece of clothing can be constructed to fit that person well and without undue expense for the manufacturer, retailer or consumer. Apparel designed for three-dimensional objects such as a human body, can be complex to make, since changes in one dimension, such as rise or waist, in the case of trousers, may require changes in another dimension, such as the seat, in order to insure a good fit. This is typically done by using conventional grading systems.
Many consumers have trouble finding volume manufactured or ready-to-wear apparel such as trousers, that fit to their satisfaction. One cause of this is that a traditional sizing system which modifies critical dimensions, such as waist, uses relatively large increments between sizes, typically one or two inches (i.e., the difference between size 30 trousers and size 32 trousers is 2 inches at the waist). Different seat and rise sizes are usually offered to consumers via fit/cut offerings (i.e., slim, relaxed, and loose fit), and normally the choices are limited due to the large number of SKU""s required. While it would be theoretically possible to manufacture and stock a large number of garments having sizes graded in small increments, the costs of maintaining large inventories in the factory/warehouse and the costs of inventorying and stocking at the retail store would be prohibitive. Consequently, only a few standard sizes are offered in most retail stores for off-the-shelf sales to consumers.
Nevertheless, there are literally thousands of combinations of waist, hips, rise and inseam measurements that are possible for a pair of trousers if a large population is to be fit well. Only one particular combination is likely to be a good fit for any given person. If any one of a person""s dimensions are different from the sizes offered by a particular clothing manufacturer, finding a good fit will be difficult if not impossible. For instance, if a customer""s rise dimension is either shorter or longer than the current style/cut offers, or the customer""s waist is in-between the sizes offered, it will be difficult for that person to get a good fit from ready-to-wear clothing.
Hence, many consumers reject ready-to wear clothing and turn to custom fitted clothing. Conventional methods for custom fitting garments captures key body dimensions, uses these dimensions to determine the critical dimensions for the garment to be created, creates a pattern from those dimensions, and then constructs the garment. Four traditional ways have been used in the past to accomplish this:
1. Use a tape measure to measure the person for key dimensions, and then use those dimensions to create the pattern and build the garment.
2. Place the actual garment that the consumer will wear on the person and make tailoring adjustments to that garment.
3. Use an adjustable garment to capture body dimensions.
4. Use some sort of mechanical, optical or video device to capture body dimensions as a prerequisite to creating a unique pattern from which the garment will be constructed.
The first two approaches used together constitute classical custom tailoring. While generally producing a good fit, the skilled labor of the tailor or seamstress required for traditional custom tailoring makes it too costly for manufacturers and retailers of ready to wear clothing to use, and too expensive for many consumers.
Adjustable try-on garments or patterns are known in the art and have been used to address the problem. These may also require skilled labor at the retail site in order for adjustments to be made properly. Whether only one adjustable garment is used, or even several adjustable garments in a standardized sizing scheme, a considerable amount of labor and expense still remains to cut and assemble the garment since each garment must be uniquely cut to the dimensions adjusted for on each customer. The use of computers can speed up the collection of the information that needs to be transmitted about the adjustments to be made, but the unique cutting requirements are still costly and time-consuming. Even where computers are used to create a pattern based on actual measurements, the costs and time for uniquely cutting to those dimensions usually remains significant.
Materials such as denim, leather, vinyl, fur, or others that are difficult to work with, complicate the problem further. If the garment is not cut satisfactorily the first time, it may be prohibitively expensive to adjust it to fit if the customer is dissatisfied with the fit of the actual garment.
Additionally, optical or electrical sensors and a computer have been used to improve accuracy of a customer""s measurements. In this type of scheme, the optical or electronic device is used to sense and capture the measurements of a person""s body. In one system, the individual wears a special garment having measuring devices that can be xe2x80x9creadxe2x80x9d by the system. This can be combined with a computer system which creates and grades or scales a pattern using the information provided by the readings. Thus, measurements can be taken or made interactively and accurately, but each garment must still be cut to the unique dimensions so ascertained. While the use of optical and electrical measuring devices improves accuracy and collection of the information regarding the customer""s body dimensions, such devices are expensive, require skilled operators, and do not solve the remaining problems and costs of unique cutting and assembly facing the volume manufacturer. Volume manufacturers may make as many as 60,000 or 70,000 pairs of pants a week in factories around the world. Costs have typically been kept low with the use of a limited number of standard sizes and standard styles/cuts, which lower or eliminate the need for specially skilled labor, and also limit the need for specialized and unique cutting and tracking methods. Custom tailoring done according to the traditional methods is inconsistent with high volume manufacturing and low costs.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,548,519 and 5,768,135, which are incorporated herein by reference, disclose a system for fitting customers to one of a plurality of pre-determined garment patterns using try-on garments which correspond to at least some of the pre-determined garment patterns. An initial try-on is identified by the system using the customer""s critical fit dimensions for a selected type of garment, then additional try-ons are identified based upon customer fit preference.
With each of these methods, a trained person, such as a tailor or a clerk, is required to take at least some measurements (which the customer cannot easily determine unaided). For example, an accurate hip, rise and/or seat measurement can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a customer to determine unaided, and measurements such as inseam or outseam can be tricky. Very often, customers feel embarrassed or awkward when such measurements are taken by another person, and this can lead to reluctance to obtain custom-fitted clothing.
Accordingly, the need exists for a manufacturing system which can produce customized clothing using measurements which a customer can easily determine without assistance, and which will reasonably accurately estimate the remaining necessary measurements which the customer cannot easily determine alone, so that the customer can order good-fitting custom sewn garments without the assistance of a tailor or clerk.
The present invention provides a manufacturing system and method for the production of customized garments. The system prompts the customer to provide information regarding critical fit dimensions which the customer can easily and substantially accurately determine without assistance, and then uses that customer input to reasonably accurately estimate other critical fit dimensions necessary to produce reasonably good fitting, custom manufactured garments, so that the customer can order reasonably good-fitting custom sewn garments without the assistance of a tailor or clerk.
In one embodiment, the present invention provides an apparatus for manufacturing a garment for a specific customer using measurements provided by that customer, including a controller, a means linked to the controller for communicating with the customer and for prompting the customer to enter known or easily ascertained information relating to some of the customer""s critical dimensions needed to manufacture a selected garment, a storage means in communication with the controller and containing rules for estimating at least one critical fit dimension needed to manufacture the selected garment based upon a relevant dimension which the customer can easily determine without assistance, such as shoe size, a means for creating pattern data from said critical dimensions, and, a means for transmitting the pattern data to a production facility for cutting and assembly to produce the garment style selected by the customer.
In another embodiment, the present invention provides an apparatus for creating pattern data which can be used to create a custom garment selected by a customer. The apparatus of this embodiment includes a controller, a means linked to the controller for communicating with the customer and prompting the customer to enter information relating to critical dimensions which the customer knows or can easily ascertain substantially accurately without assistance, a storage means linked to said controller and containing rules for estimating at least one critical fit dimension needed to create the pattern data for the selected garment based upon a relevant dimension which the customer can substantially accurately determine without assistance, and a program for creating a pattern from the identified and calculated critical fit dimensions.
In yet another embodiment, the present invention provides a method for creating pattern data which can be used to create a custom garment intended to fit a specific customer, including the steps of:
storing in a computer at least one generic pattern and identifying on said pattern the critical dimensions which can then be used to scale remaining pattern points to create a desired garment;
identifying to the customer each kind of garment for which a generic pattern has been stored in said computer, and allowing the customer to choose a garment to be produced;
based upon the garment chosen by the customer, prompting the customer to provide information relating to the critical dimensions required to scale the stored pattern corresponding to the selected garment;
using rules stored in the computer and information furnished by the customer to estimate at least one critical dimension required to create the custom garment; and,
produce a custom pattern from the base pattern by using the critical dimensions and grading the remaining pattern points using a conventional pattern production program.
Other and further objects, features, advantages and embodiments of the present invention will become apparent to one skilled in the art from reading the Detailed Description of the Invention together with the drawings.