Moving the Bust Dart: The Fashion Designer, Sylvia Ayton's Relationship with Pattern Cutting

This presentation is a shorter version of a paper being prepared for The Journal of Dress Historians. I was invited to write this by the editor Jennifer Daly. It explores the work and career of fashion designer, Sylvia Ayton MBE and her relationship with pattern cutting. Ayton’s career is significant because of its flexibility and longevity. She worked as a designer in business partnership with Zandra Rhodes in the 1960s and as a commercial designer for a UK high-street retailer, from the 1970s to 2002. With access to her archive, the research traces Ayton’s involvement with pattern cutting and considers her experiences as a designer/pattern cutter for different markets in a creative and skills based context. Within literature, pattern cutting has rarely been explored through the relationship of the designer with the craft, particularly designers such as Ayton who have worked anonymously for large companies or retailers. The underpinning research will bridge this gap by investigating the thinking, practices and paradigms of pattern cutting during a designer’s career. It will also identify a lasting reference point for the fusion of technology with design, expressed in the context of fashion design careers within the global fashion industry.