The art of transforming fabric into a wearable garment or muslin into a garment pattern. The design room in postwar America consisted of the designer, assistant designer, samplemakers, and patternmakers. The designer used draping as the vehicle to transform a design concept into a three-dimensional form. The design room at the close of the century, however, saw this art of draping and its related tasks relocated overseas to places including mainland China, India, and Turkey. The twenty-first century is exploring and sharing in the explosion of technology in the form of virtual draping. While the foundational skill sets are paramount to satisfactory design conclusion, traditional means of draping have evolved and are supported by technological advances.
Historical Dictionary of the Fashion Industry. Francesca Sterlacci and Joanne Arbuckle.