What AI can do in dress designing
Kamal Kulshreshtha, with the help of unpaid Artificial Intelligence, learnt how make a skirt.
I used unpaid Artificial Intelligence (AI) to tell me how to make a skirt and to find out how much fabric would be needed for a 170cm tall woman having waist of 28” and hips at 40”. Here’s what I got:
To generate a cut pattern for a long, flowing skirt for a woman with a height of 170 cm, a waist measurement of 28 inches (71 cm), and hip measurement of 40 inches (102 cm), I’ll first outline the basic pattern pieces needed. A simple long skirt can be either a circle skirt, half-circle skirt, or gathered skirt. Given the flowing style, a circle or half-circle skirt might work well.
Here’s an overview of the pieces for a half-circle skirt:
- Waistband: A simple rectangle matching your waist measurement.
- Skirt body: The flowing skirt part cut in a half-circle shape.
Calculations for the half-circle skirt
Waist radius: The radius for the waist is calculated using the formula for the circumference of a circle:
Waist Circumference 71
Radius = ————————– = ——– ~ 11.3 cm
2π 2π
Skirt length: Since the woman is 170 cm tall, and the skirt should be long and flowing, let’s assume you want the skirt to be about ankle length. You could subtract a few centimeters for the waistband, so the skirt length could be around 100 cm.
Total radius: The total radius of the skirt, from waist to hem, including the waist radius and the length, will be:
Total Radius = Waist radius + Skirt length = 11.3 cm + 100 cm = 111.3 cm
Cutting the pattern
Pattern shape: The pattern will resemble a half-circle, with the inner radius being 11.3 cm (waist) and the outer radius being 111.3 cm (total length). You’ll cut two pieces of this half-circle shape to form the front and back of the skirt.
Waistband: A waistband of about 71 cm long (plus seam allowance) and 5-10 cm wide would be cut as a rectangle.
Then the AI offers to give a helpful visual
Then I asked AI to make some adjustments. I asked it to give the cut pattern measurements for waist 30” instead of 28”. Sure enough, it complied with the needed adjustment as below.
Sure! Here are the updated dimensions for the half-circle skirt with a 30-inch waist (76 cm)
Waist radius: The radius for the waist is calculated using the formula for the circumference of a circle:
Waist Circumference 76
Radius = —————————- = ——– ~ 12.1 cm
2π 2π
Skirt length: Since the woman is 170 cm tall, and the skirt should be long and flowing, let’s assume you want the skirt to be about ankle length. You could subtract a few centimeters for the waistband, so the skirt length could be around 100 cm.
Total radius: The total radius of the skirt, from waist to hem, including the waist radius and the length, will be:
Total Radius = Waist radius + Skirt length = 12.1cm + 100cm = 112.1 cm
AI also tells you what width of fabric you need to have to cut out this pattern.
Fabric width requirement: Since you’re making a half-circle skirt, you’ll need fabric with a minimum width of:
Fabric Width = 2×Total Radius = 2×112.1 cm = 224.2 cm
A word about the waistband too:
Waistband: The waistband would be a rectangular strip approximately:
- Length: 76 cm (waist circumference)
- Width: 5-10 cm (depending on the desired waistband height)
AI also gives you ideas for print design. Some of these looked like above.
About the author:
Kamal Kulshreshtha is a specialist in industrial sales and marketing. He is a Textile Engineer with PGDBM having some 25 years of rich cross-functional experience in B2B sales and marketing of project sales and concept sales. He has contributed to the textile and plastic packaging industries in Indian and international markets, with a penchant for incisive insights. Kulshreshtha has widely travelled with rich exposure to businesses spanning cotton spinning, worsted spinning, melt spinning, and cultures across the globe, from Japan to Latin America, through Europe. An avid participant on Linkedin he has published works to his credit in overseas publications as well.
