Body clone

And while I am on the topic of dressmaking, a year or so ago I made a body clone, ie a model of myself in duct tape. How on earth?? You may well ask, and why??

I am a funny shape, and clothes never fit me off the rack because I have one shoulder slightly higher than the other, one boob slightly droopier than the other, my arms are joined on to the wrong part of my shoulders, my widest measurement is 2inches below my waist which is the smallest measurement, and my hip measurement is meaningless. Get the picture?

I can at last make and alter clothes so that they fit me, hang properly and the shoulder straps don't fall off anymore.

How? Assemble one ragbag t-shirt 3 sizes too big, 3 rolls of duct tape, a good friend friend with better sense of the ridiculous than you have, and yourself.

1 Visit the loo. It will be a long time until you can have a wee. Do not drink coffee at this point. Pick a day that is not too hot.

2 Strip to undies, with your best fitting bra.

3 Put t-shirt on and have your friend wrap the duct tape all over you in pieces about 6inches long, conforming closely to your actual body shape, until all parts of your body from neck to widest part of hips, *usually* about 9inches below the waist, is covered closely in several layers of duct tape. You can cut it loose and refit any bits that feel a bit tight or loose. When you are happy with it ...

4 Have your friend cut the t-shirt off you down the centre back (Watch out for that expensive bra back!!), then go the toilet, get dressed and put the kettle on for that cup of coffee and cake, at last.

5 Cut all the loose bits of t-shirt off then re-tape down the back with more duct tape and hang yourself on an old contoured wooden coathanger (the triangular sort for suits), just like the cover of The Female Eunuch, by Germaine Greer.

6 Check *all* the clone's dimensions against corresponding parts of your own body, slashing and re-taping if necessary to get them right.

7 This is where it gets tricky. The next step is to work out how it is going to stay upright while you fit clothing on it. I decided to use the swivel base of an old office chair. I stuck a piece of appropriate sized PVC pipe down the middle of the clone and fixed it in position in Wholewoman posture (Ensure that the pipe is lng enough so it will be exactly your height when assembled (very important for adjusting full-length hemlines). Then fasten the coathanger firmly to it with wire so it won't slip. (Ultimately the pipe will slip down perfectly over the spindle of the office chair.)

8 Line the boobs with old shoulder pads to fit snugly and smoothly, then stuff with the contents of the ragbag. Recycle always. Rags will make it very heavy, but it needs to be very firm and the whole thing is on wheels anyway, so it doesn't matter. If you stuff it with polyester fibrefill you will need an awful lot of it!! Stuff it really hard, very satisfying work!! You will sleep well.

9 Cut a firm cardboard shape to seal off the bottom and tape it on. The shape has to be identical to your body in cross section as well as circumference. Make similar elliplses for the shoulders so you can fit sleeves, but make the shoulders as narrow as you can get away with so you can actually get closely fitting bodices and tops on and off.

10 Stick it on its base and *get sewing*. I warn you. Keep it covered when not actually being used. Young adult offspring (and their friends and lovers) find a sculpture of the silver, naked, torso of their mother very confronting, sitting in the corner of the family room.

NB You can readjust the dimensions at any time, just by selectively slashing or tucking and retaping. It is eerie how it can be so exact. If you haven't stuffed it firmly enough it will sag after a while. Just like a real body, eh?

I have several sets of similar instructions downloaded off the Net but can't put my finger on the URL's at the moment. I will dig them out and post them here. They are not easy to google. A lighter weight model can be made of pre-glued paper tape which is normally used for finishing off the reverse side of a newly framed picture. It will dry hard, so does not need stuffing. Have fun.

Louise