Mastering Fabric Drape: Drawing Techniques for Fashion Illustration

What’s one critical component in improving the look of your fashion sketches? Understanding and mastering fabric drape can take your sketches from amateur to professional. 

Let’s review a circle skirt together in this video. A circle skirt is a complete circle, and the center of the skirt has an additional circle cut out, which is where the waist is while wearing the garment. 

Depending on the fabric you choose, the skirt can look completely different. This is due to the fabric drape. The drape refers to how the fabric hangs. 

The more flowy the fabric is, the higher the drape is, and the fabric is closer to the body. The more f ull the fabric is, the lower the fabric drape and the further it hangs from the body.

Practice drawing the different drape levels on a circle skirt.

Download your free drape scale guide below and draw directly on this guide.

This is such an excellent process of assessing the fabrics you use before you select the silhouettes. Always think to yourself, how will the fabric hang. Do a fist test to visualize the fabric before you choose the style. 

Stay tuned for the next video, where we will render these skirts you drew with markers!