TIL a $400 dress form was either my best buy or biggest waste this year

I finally bought a professional adjustable dress form for my home studio, shelling out about $400. On one hand, it's saved me hours of fitting on myself and lets me drape fabric properly for the first time. On the other, that's a huge chunk of my hobby budget and I'm not sure I use it enough to justify the cost. I've had it for six months and maybe used it for four projects. For those of you who make clothes at home, do you think a proper dress form is essential or just a nice-to-have luxury?

4 comments

4 Comments

seth_shah2mo ago

Feel your pain on that one. My own dress form mostly just holds my half-finished projects hostage while I avoid them. It's like a very expensive, oddly-shaped coat rack that judges me. I DID use it to finally get the shoulders right on a jacket last month, so maybe it's slowly earning its keep? Hard to say.

piper7792mo ago

Oh man, the coat rack thing is so real! But I gotta say, calling it expensive is where I disagree. The cheap adjustable ones are honestly not that bad, and they still help so much with seeing how stuff hangs. It's the custom forms that really cost a fortune. Even a basic one is a total game changer for fitting, so I'd say yours is already earning its keep big time.

andrewreed2mo ago

My sister got one and it just sits in her craft room with a half knit scarf on it. Kinda became a fancy shelf.

murray.jana1mo ago

Hard disagree honestly. I use mine constantly and it's saved me from so many bad fitting mistakes. Your sister might just not have found the right project to really put it through its paces yet.