"Nine buttons" project
Fashionable No Collar Waistcoat
Bespoke men's waistcoat patterns, drafted to your exact measurements by the proportionate method.
In this workspace we are showing how to draft a pattern for a men's single-breasted, six buttons, no-collar waistcoat — the same smartly designed pattern published in the Progressive Tailor, drafted by the proportionate method, and generated here directly from your own measurements rather than a stock size.
Every measurement you enter drives the draft directly, following the Progressive Tailor's own instructions exactly as published — no shortcuts substituted in. The tool's task is to carry out the system faithfully and repeatably; the drafting method itself is the historic, not ours.
This first release is built to do that one thing well: a correct, print-ready draft straight from the instructions. Use this same method for drafting patterns from other measures. If you are after ease and style adjustments, or other historic systems and garments, join the waitlist — that is exactly the direction this is headed.
About this project
My love of fashion and tailoring began with hours spent drafting patterns by hand from old tailoring magazines and instruction books — the kind of slow, exacting work where a quarter-inch in the wrong place ruins the line of a garment. Nine Buttons is that same discipline moved into a digital workflow: a way to draft a bespoke waistcoat pattern to your own measurements in seconds, without losing the rigor of the historic method it's built on.
This isn't a shortcut around tailoring knowledge — it's a tool for men who already care about drape, proportion, and construction detail, and want a well-drafted starting point they can trust, check, and build on with their own techniques.
The Progressive Tailor
The draft above isn't drawn from a generic historic "style" — it's built from a specific instruction set published in a real trade magazine, which you can go read yourself.
The Progressive Tailor was an American tailoring trade publication that ran from 1913 to at least 1939. Volume numbering jumps from 7 to 10 in 1920, and no issue or contribution copyright renewals were ever filed for the serial. The waistcoat draft on this page comes from the Autumn 1936–Winter 1937 issue (volume 26, number 2).
Several complete issues survive in public archives, if you'd like to see the original plates and instructions:
- 1917-1922: HathiTrust has volumes 5-7 and 10-12 .
- 1930: The Internet Archive has volume 20, number 1 , for Spring and Summer 1930.
- 1936-1937: The Internet Archive has volume 26, number 2 , for Autumn 1936 and Winter 1937.
- 1937: The Internet Archive has volume 27, number 1 , for Spring and Summer 1937.
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