Deconstructed Tailoring

Show the thinking: canvas, basting and a displaced lapel, photographed as flat and plainly as a pattern piece.

This is exposure of logic, not of wear. Every visible element, the canvas, the basting, the moved lapel, the proud allowance, has to answer the question of what a jacket is made of, and each garment should answer it differently. Keep the clothes convincingly constructed and wearable; press what should be pressed. If it starts to look damaged, or every hem is raw the same way, stop and cut one deliberate thing instead.

Director's note

Leave with every frame on this list.

Shot list

1. 01Straight-on full-length shot of a charcoal wool jacket worn open, the left lapel displaced two inches down the front and the closure moved off centre, cotton shirting beneath, flat even light
2. 02Waist-up shot of the same jacket from the side with the front panel folded back, hair canvas and chest piece exposed, white basting stitches running through them
3. 03Close construction detail of a shoulder seam with the allowance pressed to the outside and left proud, the raw wool edge and the basting thread sharp in the frame
4. 04Close textile detail of the three layers at a lapel roll, suiting face, canvas and shirting, laid on a cutting table with tailor's chalk beside them
5. 05Campaign scene of two figures in a bare atelier with a cutting table, pattern pieces on the wall and daylight from one side, both jackets showing a different construction decision

Flat and even, the way a pattern cutter would light a table. Two soft sources at equal power, no drama, no rim. Every seam has to be legible; a shadow across a lapel loses the point of the picture.

Light

Scout these before anything else.

Locations

1. 01A bare atelier with a cutting table
2. 02A plain wall with a rail of half-made jackets
3. 03A tailoring bench with chalk, shears and thread
4. 04A studio corner with pattern pieces pinned up

Wool suiting and cotton poplin shirting in charcoal, chalk and black, with undyed canvas and white basting as the only other colours. Every garment makes one different structural decision. Nothing distressed, nothing torn, no repeated raw hem.

Wardrobe