Dritz Sew You Adjustable Dress Form M/L, Sizes US 12–18, Female Sewing Mannequin with Pinnable Body Torso, 12 Dials for Accurate Fitting & 360 Hem Guide

I have an extreme hourglass figure, so I make a lot of my own clothing since I have trouble finding manufactured clothes that fit properly. I have needed a dress form to test out muslins on, and given my unique measurements (42/29/40), an adjustable dress form seem to be the best bet. This one was good, but still needs considerable adjustments if you are busty like me. My overall bust measurement is 42 inches, but my underbust 34 inches. I wear a 34G bra. The dress form is a B cup at best. As a result, you cannot increase the bust size on this form without also increasing the underbust size. My advice, if you have weird measurements like mine with a large chest, is to adjust the bust on this form so that it equals your underbust measurement, and then pad out the breasts to get to your overall busy measurement. On mine, I put one of my older bras and stuffed it with pairs of pantyhose until I achieved the breast size I needed. This way, I have a more accurate bust on my form than the standard measurements. I have attached photos showing the unpadded form, and the form post-padding. Other than that, I like this form. It allows you to also adjust the torso length, which is not really an issue for me (I'm very short) but I know is concerning with other women who have issues getting waistlines on dresses to fit at their natural waist rather than inadvertently becoming an empire waist. I have small shoulders, and this form does not have adjustments for that, but that is not a deal breaker. As others have said, some of the dials may be hard to turn, but after a couple of turns, the rest of it went smoothly. It is a little bit flimsy, so you will probably want to avoid using heavy fabrics with it, but if you are using cottons or other standard dress fabrics, you should be fine. I think this is a good staple for any other gals who enjoy making their own clothing. You may still need to do some adjustments to get your exact body shape, but that is to be expected with any dress form. Good value!

Lightweight, accurate, easy to store. I've been able to use this dress form not only for making garments but also to fit and try on outfits and clothing for every day. The one downside is that when you adjust the dress form there are gaps in the bigger sizes, and I accommodate this by using an old waist trainer when I need to pin something that I think might fall in the gaps that's delicate. Any adjustable dress form is going to have this issue, and this one is so easy to adjust that I am constantly tweaking and adjusting for different dress sizes. At my house the dress form was perceived as a little bit scary at night, because I would have projects in our front room that were in complete that I would leave on the dress for him when I went to bed. When folks get up in the middle of the night they would see the dress warm standing in the front room and it would startle them. The nice thing about this dress form is that it's really easy to lift off of the tripod post, so you can stow it away when you're not using it. Problem solved! I've worked with other dress forms that were hard to adjust, it accurate, heavy, and difficult to pin into. This dress form has none of those issues and probably cost 1/3 what those dress forms cost. Totally worse the price and it has completely transformed my dressmaking and ability to do alterations on my own.

This is a good dress form, but I couldn't make it work for me. I have a long waist and the torso on this thing just wouldn't adjust to the proper length for me. From the prominent bone in the back of my neck to my natural waist (as directed to measure by the instructions) is 15"--to my hips is 19". The form would only adjust to a total of 17" neck to hips. All the other measurements could be adjusted fairly well--close enough to make it work at least. The other areas I had trouble with were getting the waist small enough to match my measurements while keeping the bust and hips wide enough. When adjusting the bust up the rib cage area expands as well, and even though there are dials on the sides to bring the ribs in a bit, it would adjust the bust down too much, so I ended up trying to strike a balance between the two areas--as I said--close enough to make it work. I added a bra with padding to shape up the bust, and that helped with the overall shape being more realistic, but was not helpful in trying to adjust the form to my measurements. Just another element to have to counterbalance on the form, in other words. The same situation was present with the hips. If I expanded the hips to where they needed to be (the fullest area around the bum and upper thighs), the area that would be where my hip bones are would expand far too much so that the form no longer resembled my shape. I was working on a drop-waist dress, and when I put it on the form, the chest area fit approximately as it would on me, but the hip bone area was very snug, while the skirt fell about right. Again, the waist was not long enough for my actual shape, so the dress was never going to fit right on this form--not in a way that would be helpful to me trying to fit it to myself. All the other areas could have been remedied by taking the smallest measurement needed, adjusting the whole thing down to that size, and then adding some padding where needed, as other reviewers have suggested. A headache, maybe, but it would have worked. But the limitation on how long you can make the waist was never going to work, so I am returning it. Again, the form itself is just fine. Probably not the fanciest one out there, but it will work for the home seamstress or creative type--provided you don't have a very long torso! The green felt is a lovely color, and you can pin to it at an angle--not straight in. The adjustment toggles are easy to operate, and it's also very easy to assemble. It comes with simple instructions, but you don't even need them to figure out how to get the thing together. The waist adjustment is the only fiddly one, as it's located underneath the form, but the screw for it is shaped differently than the height adjusters on the stand, so it's easy to locate without having to crane your head around to look up her duff. Not the sturdiest base in the world, but what you'd expect for $99. All in all, I'd recommend it for anyone with measurements neck to hip at 17" or less. But if you find you have trouble finding a one-piece bathing suit that doesn't expose your nipples, or if when you zip up a wetsuit it feels like someone's trying to fold you in half--take a torso measurement; this may not be the form for you!

Very nice, good quality for a beginner manakin. Knobs rotate easily.

Good value for the money. I got the dress form to fit my bust and hips, and since I have not much of a waist I had to pad the waist and boobs because the dress form adjustments don’t perfectly mesh. (If I expand the waist, it impacts the ribcage/underbust area, which then is too large. And the breasts on the form are about an A cup, and if I expand the bust to match my measurements, the underbust is 2” too big.) This isn’t a heavy duty dress form that a pro seamstress is going to repeatedly adjust for every project. This is a lightweight form that a home sewist will adjust and leave. I have adjusted mine and want to also use painter’s tape to mark where my shoulder seams and waistband should sit, which will make it easier for me to drape unsewn fabric to make a sloper. Now that it is harder to get patterns, I will have to make my own or alter ones I already have. So far I have used it to fit several straight skirts and it has worked out really well. Now I am kicking myself for not getting one 30 years ago. There are others on Amazon that cost nearly twice what this one did, and I am thrilled to get this one. I am also happy that I can stick it with pins, which you can’t do with many of them without damaging the underlying form. I got the matching Dritz dress form cover so that I could cover the waist padding and the stuffed bra I put on the form. Now it looks really nice and smooth.

This mannequin has everything you need to sew clothes of different sizes, it is easily adjustable although it does not hold the adjustment exactly. It is light and functional. Unfortunately for me it does not work because the smaller sizes are not compatible with mine, the mannequin is a little too big to sew clothes of my size. Easily assembled. Good value for money.

My first time buying a dressform. It took me a while to figure out if I needed one lol. But I’m glad I did. I read the comments and was a little nervous about adjusting her. It does take a while. I spent about an hour on that part, but she is wonderful. I can use pins on her, she is a lovely green color (my favorite color I might be biased hehe). I would like to add these considerations: she definitely for those with more traditional measurements. Also her sizing is not as broad as one would think. I’m a 8/10 and I barely made the cut as far as adjusting goes. I’m pretty curvy and wear an d cup. Assembly wasn’t too hard. She is a little on the flimsy side so be careful adjusting. I haven’t started any projects on her yet, and I don’t think she will last forever but imma enjoy my dressform while she lasts. Satisfied :)

I'm a professional seamstress, so I needed something very very adjustable that spins and pins. I used to work in a shop that had a Matilda from the turn of the century. She was a size 12, her height was adjustable but not her size, and you could pin to your heart's content and never worry that you would break her. Admittedly that Matilda had ugly fabric on her, but we used to have fun dressing her up with new slip covers. Ever since I left the shop I have been dreaming about buying a Matilda (or something similar), but they are very expensive and I just can't wait any longer. So I shopped around quite a bit and decided on this one. It's very nearly perfect. She spins, (I would argue that she does not pin), she's lightweight (Matilda was NOT), she's a lovey shade of emerald, and her feet do not scratch my wood floors. Pros: Very adjustable, cranked in she's roughly a size 2-4, cranked out she's close to an 18. Her height is also adjustable. Yesterday I dropped her all the way down, and beaded the bodice on a wedding gown while sitting comfortably in a chair. Then I cranked her all the way up and trimmed a tulle hem while sitting in the same chair. Lightweight, I can easily pick her up and set her on the table so I can work on a complicated hem without having to sit or lay on the floor, which is awesome because I have bad knees and do not get up off the floor quickly or gracefully. She was very affordable, enough so that I'm thinking about buying a large model too. The other ones I've been looking at would have cost me $400 each and I would have needed one in each size to cover my client base. Where would I put all that and how would I PAY for it? Expanding neck, which Matilda did not have at all. She spins and spins easily (which is critical for me as I can run hems through the sewing machine while the weight of the dress is held up and not falling off the sewing table). Cons: She's mostly plastic, which might not hold up long term especially with my workload (yesterday she had 3 different wedding gowns on her, today will be worse). I get that the torso has to be plastic, but I wish the feet and adjustment gears were metal. The skirt marker isn't long enough for wedding gowns and/or full skirts. She's rather flat chested (although I suppose it's easier to add than subtract). She's really isn't pin-able. I'm going to make a couple of padded sleeves to pull down over her, so the gaping holes don't offend my (larger than a size 2) brides and I can pin fabric to her. But how hard would it be to add some padding in the manufacturing process and charge me an extra $10-20 for that? Not too hard I bet. She has dials all over, I think she would be vastly improved if she had fewer dials that operated multiple openings with a readable dimension on the dial. So if I has a customer that measured 38, 25, 39, I could adjust one dial for each dimension and be done. I also wish that there was a way to adjust the height to a specific measurement. I can adjust the height yes, but I can't adjust it to exactly 5'-2". I have to guess at it, then measure and adjust, over and over until it's just so. I wish she had wheels, because I move her around all the time, and I have to be careful not to drag her because the torso pulls off the pole rather easily. I'm thinking about buying a scooter and fixing her base to it. But again, how hard would it be to add the wheels to the manufacturing process? Not too hard I bet.