the fitting room: lyndsey’s cannes wide-legged trousers

Hello! I’m Lyndsey from the Advisor’s Circle. Last week I posted my spring sewing plans, and today I’m sharing my new Cannes Wide-Legged Trousers. I’m also sharing the pants-fitting method I used to get a fantastic fit on my new trousers. Fitting pants has been an intimidating process for me in the past, but now that I have a couple of methods to use, I am much more confident.

Woman wearing pink wide-legged trousers and matching pink blouse. The text on the image says "the fitting room: lyndsey's cannes trousers".

Last summer, I fit pants for the first time when I made my Lisboa Walking Shorts. As much as I dreaded the process, it wasn’t difficult to get a good fit. I used the Top Down, Center Out (#TopDownCenterOut) method for the Lisboa shorts. For the Cannes trousers, I decided to try a different technique, the Palmer Pletsch tissue fitting method. The two approaches are very similar, with the Top Down, Center Out method using a fabric muslin and the Palmer Pletsch method using pattern tissue. In both cases, my adjustments were nearly the same. The photos below show my final tissue fitting with the necessary adjustments. I wish I had taken pictures before we made any adjustments, but we were too excited to get to the alterations.

Three images of a woman fitting pants using the Palmer Pletsch tissue fitting method. The left image shows the front fitting, the middle images shows the side fitting, and the right image shows the back fitting.

Fitting Adjustments

I will walk through the pattern adjustments I made during the fitting process. For this example, the pictures are not shown at scale.

1. For tissue fitting, you will only need the trouser front, trouser back, and the pocket stay. All the other pieces, like the fly-facing and fly shield, can wait until the fitting process is complete.

Minature Cannes Wide-Legged Trouser pattern pieces.

2. Place the pocket stay behind the trouser front and treat the two pieces as one unit for the rest of the fitting process. The reason for doing this is that this pattern has a trouser pocket which means the trouser front does not have the side seam where the pocket will be. I now have the full side seam by combining the pocket stay and the trouser front. I also transferred the stitching line from the pocket stay to the trouser front piece (blue line) for reference.

Minature Cannes Wide-Legged Trouser pattern pieces showing pocket stay placed behind pants front.

3. The first change I needed to make was to decrease the crotch depth by one inch on both the trouser front and trouser back pattern pieces. I took 1″ total tuck out of both pattern pieces. Even after decreasing the crotch depth by 1″, my front waistband was still too high at the center front. Therefore, I redrew the front waistband, following the shape of my body.

Minature Cannes Wide-Legged Trouser pattern pieces showing crotch depth alteration and line drawn for shaping of waistline.

4. Next, I removed the excess at the front waistband by trimming off the area above the blue line marked in the previous step. Then, all I had left was to let out the hips by adding some additional tissue paper to the side seams. Finally, I tapered the extra width to nothing at the knees to ensure I wasn’t making the pants wider than drafted. With those few changes, my pattern was ready to go!

Minature Cannes Wide-Legged Trouser pattern pieces showing crotch depth alteration and line drawn for shaping of waistline. Width has been added to the hops (in blue).

Final Trousers

I love, love, love these trousers. Wide-legged pants have always been a flattering silhouette for my body shape. I sewed the trousers and a matching Classic Shirt in a pink silk fabric. The outfit turned out just like my inspiration photo! I was worried that all that pink would overwhelm me, but I love the drama of wide legs. These pieces will work well for this outfit and coordinate with other pieces in my handmade wardrobe.

Woman wearing pink wide-legged trousers and matching pink blouse. She is standing in a living room in front of a fire place. She is holding a white handbag with a scarf tied around the handle

Woman wearing pink wide-legged trousers and matching pink blouse. She is standing in a living room in front of a fire place. She has her hand in a pocket

The fitting adjustments I made really improved the fit of the pants. You can see in the images below that the fit is spot on. I can’t wait to make more versions of this pattern!

Three pictures of aoman wearing pink wide-legged trousers to show of the fit of the trousers. The first picture is a side view. The second picture is a front view. The third picture is a back view.



 

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10 Comments

  1. Rachel

    Beautifully fitting pants! I appreciate this post and your previous post about pants fitting. I am still intimidated but hope to tackle pants soon. Seeing your process to lower the rise was especially helpful for me.

    1. It is intimidating! I’m finding that I need to make the same changes on different pants patterns, so that helps boost my confidence. I am glad it is helpful.

  2. Erica

    Lyndsey, this whole outfit is stunning! The silhouette of the Classic Shirt and Cannes together is fabulous, and the color and fit are all perfect together!

    1. Thank you, Erica!

  3. You have blown my mind away Lyndsey! You look smashing. And thats a superb fit on the pants and the shirt.

    1. Thank you, Asmita! I’m really happy with how it turned out!

  4. Maggie

    These look amazing! I was wondering if you used a 4 ply silk or some other type? I’ve been experimenting with sewing silk and was curious what else could work for both tops and bottoms. Thanks!

    1. Thanks, Maggie! This is a crepe-backed satin. I used the crepe side as the face. The twists in the crepe construction help give it that amazing drape.

  5. Ava

    Such a helpful tutorial, the whole outfit looks stunning on you! You could break up the pink with a long necklace.
    Has anyone tried the trousers without the front pleats?

    1. Thanks, Ava!
      I removed the front pleat for fitting, so it is easy to do. I wanted the volume so I left it in.

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