Tailoring Terms

Baby - stuffed cloth pad on which the tailor works his cloth.

Banger - piece of wood with handle, used to draw out steam and smooth cloth during ironing.

Balance - adjustment of back and front lengths of a jacket to harmonise with the posture of a particular figure

Balloon...having a balloon - a week without work or pay.

Baste - garment roughly assembled for first fitting.

Basting - tacking with long stitches to hold garment parts together.

Bespoke - a suit made on or around Savile Row, bespoken to the customer's specifications. A bespoke suit is cut by an individual and made by highly skilled individual craftsmen. The pattern is made specifically for the customer and the finished suit will take a minimum of 50 hours of hand work and require a series of fittings.

Board - tailor's workbench.

Bodger - crude worker. Common to other trades.

Boot - loan until payday. Can you spare the boot? Can you give me a loan? Dates from crossed-leg days, when a tailor recorded the loan by chalking it on the sole of his boot.

Bunce - a trade perk, like mungo and a crib (see below).

Bundle - components of jacket or trousers bundled together for making-up.

Bushelman - journeyman who alters or repairs.

Canvas - a cloth usually made from cotton, flax, hemp or jute and used for providing strength or firmness.

Cat's face - a small shop opened by a cutter starting out on his own.

Chuck a dummy - to faint. Allusion is to a tailor's dummy tumbling over.

Clapham Junction - a paper design draft with numerous alterations or additions.

Coat - jacket. (Only potatoes have jackets, it used to be said)

Codger - tailor who does up old suits.

Cork - the boss.

Crib - large scrap of cloth left over from a job, usually enough to make a pair of trousers or a skirt.

Crushed beetles - badly made button holes.

Cutting turf - clumsy, unskilled working.

Cutting system - method of pattern preparation using a particular process of measurement and figure evaluation. Scores have been devised since methods of working out the proportions of the figure were first explored in the late eighteenth century

Doctor - alteration tailor.

Dolly - roll of wet material used as a sponge to dampen cloth

Draft - sketch or measure plan of a garment

Drag...in the drag - working behind time.

Drummer - trouser-maker.

Goose iron - hand iron heated on a naked flame

Gorge - where the collar is attached

Have you been on the board? - are you experienced?

Hip stay - old-time name for wife.

Interlining - material positioned between lining and outer fabric to provide bulk or warmth

Jeff - a small master: one who cuts out his garments and also makes them up.

Kicking - looking for another job.

Kicking your heels - no work to do.

Kill - a spoiled job that has to be thrown away.

Kipper - a tailoress. So called because they sought work in pairs to avoid unwelcome advances.

Log...on the log - piecework: the traditional and complex system of paying out-workers.

Made-to-measure - garment made to a customer's individual requirements, to some extent, but not necessarily by hand

Mangle - sewing machine

Mungo - cloth cuttings, which by custom the tailor used to retain to sell to a rag merchant for a little extra income.

On the cod - gone drinking.

Pattern - a template model used for cutting garments

Pig - an unclaimed garment.

Pigged - a lapel which turns up after some wear.

Pinked...pink a job - making with extra care.

Rock of eye - rule of thumb: using instinct born of experience, rather than a scientific cutting system

Skiffle - a job needed in a hurry.

Skipping it - making the stitches too big

Small seams - warning call when someone being discussed enters workroom.

Soft sew - an easily worked cloth.

Scye - the armhole: from 'arm's eye'

Skirt - part of a jacket that hangs below the waist

Striker - assistant to a cutter

Tab - fussy, difficult customer.

Trotter - fetcher and carrier: messenger.

Tweed merchant - tailor who does the easy work: a poor workman.

Whipping the cat - travelling round and working in private houses: common practice in old days when a tailor would be given board and lodging while he made clothes for a family and their servants.