About Us

Fitography® originated from my belief that there had to be an easier, more efficient way to draft custom patterns.
 
I started sewing when I was around 10 and sewed most of my own clothes in high school. Often I was too small for purchased patterns, so my mother learned how to grade them down and she showed me how. I majored in Fashion Design in college and moved to New York after graduation to be in the garment center. My first job in New York was with Simplicity Patterns as an instruction writer. Ultimately I was a professional patternmaker for over 25 years.
 
Soon after moving to New York I would spend my Saturday mornings at the FIT bookstore. I purchased a few books on drafting custom patterns and became fascinated with the idea. It took 10 years of failures to realize my body and I were not the problem. I started trying to invent other methods for custom pattern drafting like wrapping the body with tape, only to find others were ahead of me.
 
I began playing with different measurements and created new drafting formulas and measurement taking devices. I patented ContourClone in 2004. It was a series of interlocking strips that you place on your body and adjust to fit. When you lay it flat you have a perfect fitting sloper to trace around. Modern Marvels selected it as one of the top 25 inventions of 2006. I abandoned it when I realized I couldn’t manufacture it at a reasonable price point and also I couldn’t get the pant portion of it to work correctly. I had discovered that it was because not all necessary measurements could be measured on the surface of the body. There needed to be other ways of measuring.
 
I got the idea for Fitography in June 2010. It was a combination of two separate ideas that I had been kicking around: 1) still searching for new ways to measure for perfect fit; 2) creating your own croquis from photographs (that idea was not mine) and then putting it to scale on graph paper so you could draw styles and measure details to draft your own patterns.
 
Once I had the idea, the hardest part of creating Fitography® was finding a great team of software developers. I eventually found that team and I think they did an amazing job. I’m sure you will think so too!
 
We finally launched in March of 2016. Even though the amount of styles seems limited right now, we will continue to add patterns.
 
Carol Grove, President
Fitography Patterns Inc.
235 Adams St.
Brooklyn, NY 11201