How to Measure Yourself for a Made-to-Measure Jacket or Coat

• Use a flexible tailor's tape measure that has not stretched; check it against a rigid ruler if it is old.
• Wear a light shirt or a close-fitting T-shirt and trousers you would wear with the jacket, with empty pockets and no belt bulk where you measure.
• Stand naturally, feet about hip width apart, weight on both feet, arms relaxed at the sides.
• Ask a second person to take the measurements. Measuring your own chest and back accurately is nearly impossible.
• Record every value immediately, in centimeters if possible, and note anything unusual about your posture.

Height drives many of the vertical proportions in a jacket draft: back length, armhole depth, sleeve length and overall length. Stand barefoot against a wall with heels, seat and shoulder blades touching it, look straight ahead, place a flat object such as a book on top of the head at a right angle to the wall, mark the wall and measure from the floor to the mark. Do not guess or use an old figure from a document. If you will usually wear the jacket with heeled dress shoes, still give your barefoot height; the draft is based on the body, not the footwear.

Chest is the most important width measurement for a jacket. Pass the tape around the fullest part of the chest, under the arms and across the shoulder blades at the back. The tape must be level all the way round; the helper should check the back, because it tends to drop or rise there.

The tape should lie flat against the body: snug, without compressing it. A good test is that one finger slides under the tape without lifting it. Take the measurement after a normal breath out, with arms down, not raised.

• Waist: for a jacket, measure around the natural waist, the narrowest part of the torso or, on figures without a clear narrowing, at the level of the navel. Do not measure where the trousers sit if that is much lower, and do not pull the stomach in.
• Seat or hip: measure around the fullest part of the seat with the feet together and the tape level. This matters for jacket and coat length, because the hem has to pass smoothly over the seat.
• Neck: measure around the base of the neck where a shirt collar would sit, with one finger under the tape. It helps the draft place the neckline and collar correctly.

Some patterns ask for additional measurements that refine the draft, such as shoulder width, back width, arm length or upper arm girth. When a model asks for them, take them carefully: shoulder width from the shoulder point on one side to the other across the back, arm length from the shoulder point over a slightly bent elbow to the wrist bone. If you are unsure about one of these, measure it again with a helper rather than entering a guess.

The order form on each Minerva model shows which measurements that particular pattern uses, so you only need to take the ones listed. The same measurements serve a jacket such as our pattern 6017, a Men's Three-Button Notch Lapel Jacket, and a coat such as 6009, a Men's Classic Single-Breasted Overcoat; the difference in fit comes from the ease each draft adds.

1. 1.Measuring over a jacket, sweater or thick shirt. Measure over a light layer only; the pattern accounts for what goes underneath and on top.
2. 2.Pulling the tape tight. A tight tape can cost several centimeters around the chest and waist, and the jacket will be too small.
3. 3.Letting the tape drop at the back. A tape that slopes down behind the body reads larger than the real chest measurement.
4. 4.Sucking in the stomach or puffing out the chest. Stand as you normally stand.
5. 5.Mixing units. Entering a value in inches where centimeters are expected produces an unusable pattern; double-check every field.
6. 6.Adding ease yourself. Covered below, and the most important point of all.

Ease is the difference between the body and the garment: the room that lets you move, breathe, sit and wear a shirt or a jacket underneath. Every garment pattern contains it, and the amount depends on the style. A close-fitting waistcoat needs little, a jacket more, and an overcoat that goes over a jacket a great deal more.

In a made-to-measure pattern, this ease is added by the draft itself, according to the style of the model. If you add a few centimeters to your chest measurement to be safe, the pattern adds its own ease on top, and the jacket comes out too large, usually most visibly in the shoulders and chest. Give the honest body measurement and let the pattern do the rest.

The same applies to the choice of garment. You do not need a separate, larger set of measurements for an overcoat than for a jacket. The body is the same; it is the pattern that knows a coat must go over a jacket and drafts the extra room accordingly.

A letter or numbered size is a set of measurements for an average body at that size: a chest, a waist, a height and a set of proportions that move together. Few people match all of them. A man may have the chest of one size, the waist of a smaller one and the height of a long fitting, and a standard pattern makes him choose which part to fit and which to alter.

Minerva Patterns works the other way. You enter your own height, chest, waist, seat and the other measurements the model asks for, or start from the Standard Sizes quick-pick and adjust the values, and the pattern is drafted from those numbers. There is no grading between sizes and no tracing of one line out of many. You choose the format when ordering: printable PDF (A4, US Letter, A0 or one long sheet), a projector file, PLT or DXF AAMA, with or without seam allowances. For an important jacket, a quick toile in inexpensive cloth is still a good idea before cutting the final fabric.