How to grade a swimsuit
Currently I have been working for a client who wishes to launch their their own swimwear brand, and although I can not share with you any of their styles, I thought I’d share with you the grade points on a swimsuit.
Grading lingerie and swimwear follows the same grading rules, and a swimsuit follows the same grade as a body.
In the grade book I didn’t cover bodies so thought I’d share some knowledge about the basic rules of grading a swimsuit.
The main difference when grading a body/swimsuit rather than briefs is that you have the full length of your body to think about rather than grading two separate pieces. So have to think about putting the length in the right places.
The full length of the swimsuit increases 1.5cm so from HPS (highest point of shoulder) to the gusset, I also grade the top of CF (centre front) to the gusset 1.5cm as due to the stretchiness of the fabrics from HPS to the top of your chest covers the amount if it increases, and dependent on the body type depends on the difference of some peoples measurements.
So if you’ve read the grade book, you know that the width of the body grades by 2.5cm at the front and 2.5cm at the back (so 1.25 on the 1/2), again due to the stretch of swimwear fabric some graders I know just grade out by 1.2cm.
To start I always map out and draw a full garment piece and add the arrows of the full grade, then I can work out each point of the pattern how it will grade. So 1.5cm full body, 2.5cm width and 1cm in the side seam, this can range from 0.9cm to 1.2cm depending on your grade system.
So starting from the top:
CF increases 0.5cm up
Both HPS increase 0.5cm up and 0.5cm out. (only grading 1cm of straps out so they don’t end up too wide)
Under arm point increase up 0.5cm (to get 1/2 the side seam increase) and out 1.25cm to get the chest increase and to also get 0.7cm increase on the underarm.
Leg point increase 0.5cm downwards to get 1/2 the side seam increase and 1.25cm to get the hips increase.
Gusset points both increase 1cm downwards, to get the full body increase and the leg grade.
By breaking it down into sections you can work out the grade. Once these grade are worked out if you have style lines on the swimsuit, say you have a line under the chest then you know to just to split 1/2 the grade in the length so its even on both sides.
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To learn more about grading see below:
