Using the actual and estimated critical dimensions, the controller determines the pattern data which is used to produce custom-made clothing which provides a superior fit to that which a customer would typically experience from the retail purchase of a similar mass-produced garment.

This invention relates generally to the production of clothing and more particularly to clothing manufactured to fit a specific customer.

For years, a problem in making custom-fitted apparel in a cost effective manufacturing system has been determining how to capture a person's body dimensions so that a piece of clothing can be constructed to fit that person well and without undue expense for the manufacturer, retailer or consumer.

Apparel designed for three-dimensional objects such as a human body, can be complex to make, since changes in one dimension, such as rise or waist, in the case of trousers, may require changes in another dimension, such as the seat, in order to insure a good fit.

This is typically done by using conventional grading systems.

Many consumers have trouble finding volume manufactured or ready-to-wear apparel such as trousers, that fit to their satisfaction.

One cause of this is that a traditional sizing system which modifies critical dimensions, such as waist, uses relatively large increments between sizes, typically one or two inches (i.e., the difference between size 30 trousers and size 32 trousers is 2 inches at the waist).

Different seat and rise sizes are usually offered to consumers via fit/cut offerings (i.e., slim, relaxed, and loose fit), and normally the choices are limited due to the large number of SKU's required.

While it would be theoretically possible to manufacture and stock a large number of garments having sizes graded in small increments, the costs of maintaining large inventories in the factory/warehouse and the costs of inventorying and stocking at the retail store would be prohibitive.

Consequently, only a few standard sizes are offered in most retail stores for off-the-shelf sales to consumers.

Nevertheless, there are literally thousands of combinations of waist, hips, rise and inseam measurements that are possible for a pair of trousers if a large population is to be fit well.

Only one particular combination is likely to be a good fit for any given person.

If any one of a person's dimensions are different from the sizes offered by a particular clothing manufacturer, finding a good fit will be difficult if not impossible.

For instance, if a customer's rise dimension is either shorter or longer than the current style/cut offers, or the customer's waist is in-between the sizes offered, it will be difficult for that person to get a good fit from ready-to-wear clothing.

Hence, many consumers reject ready-to wear clothing and turn to custom fitted clothing.

Conventional methods for custom fitting garments captures key body dimensions, uses these dimensions to determine the critical dimensions for the garment to be created, creates a pattern from those dimensions, and then constructs the garment.

Four traditional ways have been used in the past to accomplish this: 1. Use a tape measure to measure the person for key dimensions, and then use those dimensions to create the pattern and build the garment. 2. Place the actual garment that the consumer will wear on the person and make tailoring adjustments to that garment. 3. Use an adjustable garment to capture body dimensions. 4. Use some sort of mechanical, optical or video device to capture body dimensions as a prerequisite to creating a unique pattern from which the garment will be constructed.

The first two approaches used together constitute classical custom tailoring.

While generally producing a good fit, the skilled labor of the tailor or seamstress required for traditional custom tailoring makes it too costly for manufacturers and retailers of ready to wear clothing to use, and too expensive for many consumers.

Adjustable try-on garments or patterns are known in the art and have been used to address the problem.

These may also require skilled labor at the retail site in order for adjustments to be made properly.

Whether only one adjustable garment is used, or even several adjustable garments in a standardized sizing scheme, a considerable amount of labor and expense still remains to cut and assemble the garment since each garment must be uniquely cut to the dimensions adjusted for on each customer.

The use of computers can speed up the collection of the information that needs to be transmitted about the adjustments to be made, but the unique cutting requirements are still costly and time-consuming.

Even where computers are used to create a pattern based on actual measurements, the costs and time for uniquely cutting to those dimensions usually remains significant.

Materials such as denim, leather, vinyl, fur, or others that are difficult to work with, complicate the problem further.

If the garment is not cut satisfactorily the first time, it may be prohibitively expensive to adjust it to fit if the customer is dissatisfied with the fit of the actual garment.

Additionally, optical or electrical sensors and a computer have been used to improve accuracy of a customer's measurements.

In this type of scheme, the optical or electronic device is used to sense and capture the measurements of a person's body.

In one system, the individual wears a special garment having measuring devices that can be "read" by the system.

This can be combined with a computer system which creates and grades or scales a pattern using the information provided by the readings.