Designing Doll Clothes

When coming up with new doll patterns and new doll ideas, the hardest part for me will always be: What will her clothes look like? Designing clothes for dolls can be difficult, after all I'm a doll artist, not a seamstress or fashion designer. I'm also not very good at math and measurements. I only really use my ruler to help me draw straight lines. Therefore, when I design doll clothes, I play it by eye.

I usually finish the doll first before I design her clothes. Then I place the doll on a piece of cardstock paper and draw around her, leaving about half an inch of extra space between her body and the lines I'm drawing. I draw the front piece of the clothing first, then I fold it in half, trim off any excess and shape it until the half is perfectly symmetrical, then I draw the back halves of the clothes.

It's not a perfect method and I never really know if the clothes are actually going to fit until I try them on the doll. But it's been working for me so far. Once I have enough clothing templates, I can even use the shorts to make pants by tracing the shorts on paper and using my ruler to help me elongate the shorts legs into pants legs, or turn a shirt into a dress by lengthening the bottom of it.

Eventually I'd like to pull out my measuring tape and make more complicated clothing. But until then this method works for what I need it to do.

I hope this helps! To see more of my dolls, check out the gallery on the home page or go check out my Etsy shop: LuParisDolls.

Link to my Etsy shop: https://luparisdolls.etsy.com