How to Take Your Measurements for a Custom Dress

Every made-to-measure gown we cut begins with numbers you take yourself, usually in a bedroom mirror, usually slightly unsure. This guide exists so you can be sure. The measurements are not difficult — but each has one way to get it right and two or three popular ways to get it wrong, and the difference arrives months later as a bodice that almost fits.

Before anything: you need a soft measuring tape (a fabric one, not the metal kind from a toolbox), well-fitting underwear — ideally the bra you expect to wear with the gown, because it changes more than you'd think — and a friend. The friend is not optional for the back measurements. Measure over bare skin or thin underwear, never over clothing, and stand naturally: heels together, shoulders relaxed, breathing normally. The tape should sit snug against the body without pressing into it. If it leaves a mark, it was too tight; if you can fit a fist underneath, too loose. Think of how a well-fitted dress feels, and let the tape feel like that.

Our order form asks for twelve measurements, in four groups. Take them in this order.

Silhouette

Bust. Around the fullest part of the chest, with the tape level all the way around — the most common error is a tape that rides up across the back. Arms down (this is why the friend matters). Don't puff your chest or hold your breath; the gown has to fit the breathing version of you.

Waist. Your natural waist, which is almost never where your trousers sit. Bend to one side; the crease that forms is it — typically the narrowest point, above the navel. Measure there, comfortably snug.

Hips. Around the fullest part of the hips and seat, tape level, feet together. Fullest — not where hip bones are, but where the tape reads largest, usually 18–23 cm below the waist.

Length. From the highest point of the shoulder (where a bra strap sits, beside the neck) straight down the front of the body to where you want the hem to end. Wear shoes with a heel height close to what you'll wear with the gown, or hold the number in mind when you choose. For a full-length gown, measure to the floor.

Upper body

Upper bust. Around the chest above the bust, high under the arms, across the top of the back. Together with the bust measurement, this tells our pattern-makers how your fullness is distributed — it is what lets a fitted bodice fit at the neckline as well as at the fullest point.

Shoulder to under breast. From that same high point of the shoulder, over the fullest part of the bust, down to the crease beneath it. This places the underbust seam of a corseted or empire bodice exactly where your body puts it, not where a size chart guesses.

Shoulder to waist. From the high shoulder point, over the bust, down to the natural waist you found earlier. This is torso length — the measurement standard sizing ignores entirely, and the reason fitted dresses crease at the middle on long-waisted figures and sit low on short-waisted ones.

Back and shoulders

Both of these need your friend.

Back height. From the prominent bone at the base of the neck (tilt your head forward; you'll feel it) straight down the spine to the waistline. It anchors where the back of the gown — a low back, a row of buttons, a zip — actually lands.

Shoulders. Straight across the back, from the outer edge of one shoulder to the other — the points where the shoulder turns downward into the arm. Keep the tape flat and shoulders relaxed; hunching shortens the reading and the fit of any sleeve or strap depends on it.

Arms

Arm hole. Around the shoulder joint: the tape passes over the top of the shoulder and under the armpit in a loop, comfortably loose. This governs how a sleeve or armhole is cut, and it's the difference between a sleeve you can raise a glass in and one you fight all night.

Arm length. From the shoulder point down the outside of a slightly bent arm to the wrist bone. The bend matters — a sleeve measured on a straight arm ends short the moment you move.

Biceps. Around the fullest part of the upper arm, relaxed at your side. Not flexed, not squeezed. A fitted sleeve is cut from this number with ease built in — if the number is taken tight, the ease disappears.

Three habits that ruin good measurements

The first is rounding down. Nobody is immune to shaving a centimetre from the waist reading, and a pattern doesn't care about the wish — it cuts what it is told. Write down what the tape says.

The second is measuring alone. Front measurements, fine. Back measurements taken solo involve contortions that change the numbers; a friend takes them in thirty seconds.

The third is measuring aspirationally — for the body you plan to have by the wedding. Order for who you are on measuring day. If your body changes meaningfully before we cut, write to us with new numbers; a note before cutting costs nothing, while a gown cut to a prediction is an alteration bill.

Take the twelve slowly — the whole thing is a fifteen-minute job — enter them in the form, and from there the pattern work is ours. If any reading seems off when it reaches the workroom (a bust and upper bust that contradict each other, an arm length that doesn't match a back height), we will query it with you before anything is cut. Measuring is the only part of the process in your hands, and now you know everything the atelier does.