The Shop Company Professional Full Body Form Review

I’m so excited about my new full body form! I have been thinking about getting a professional full body form for quite awhile now. Although I had one of those flimsy plastic adjustable forms for years, it completely broke down last year and I had to part ways with her. A few months ago I contacted The Shop Company and asked about doing a collaboration and they kindly agreed to give me 50% off the price of the full body form. I was researching their forms and was planning to make the purchase myself either way, so I am pretty thrilled they agreed to work with me! The form is very well made and quite sturdy. I thought assembling the form would be difficult and take me hours, but it actually only took about 20 minutes.

I started right away working on a new pattern for a pair of overalls. I had the pants block ready to go, but I wanted to drape the rest of the pattern pieces on the form. Before I would have had to do this on my own body, which as you can imagine is a little difficult to do! This form is also pinnable, so it was easy to pin the tissue paper onto the form. The other feature I like is that it has collapsible shoulders. This means there is a spring inside the form at the shoulders. You press the shoulders together and they stay in place while you put your garment on. Then once the garment is on the form, you press the shoulders again to make them spring back into place. It’s very helpful! I also ordered the arms to go with the form, and they are easily removable as well.

As for which size to order, I kept going back and forth on the size. I read everywhere to order the smaller size and then pad up. The thing is, the bottom portion of the form was way smaller on the size that fit my top portion best. And I really didn’t want to cover up the form with lots of padding if the one measurement that was too big for me was the bust. Since I will be using the form primarily for pattern making, I decided that it would be okay to order the larger form in the end. So I ordered the one that was closest to my measurements in the lower portion and close enough everywhere else, except for the bust. So far the slightly larger bust hasn’t really been an issue. If you plan to make a lot of tight fitting garments, you might want to be cautious and order down a size and pad it where you need it. I suspect most people will need to pad the bust and to do that you can easily put one of your bras on the form if necessary. The backside is a little less padded than me, but that can be remedied with a bit of quilt batting!

I am very happy with the quality of this full body form and it has already helped me so much with the patterns I am working on. It is reasonably priced, compared to other quality forms and it is quite sturdy, so I think it will last me a long time. I feel like I have an extra helper in the studio!

The Shop Company has kindly agreed to give my readers a $15 discount on any Professional Dress Form! Just add the coupon code “anna_mcclurg” when ordering. You will also be offered a choice of a free gift (either a 10" Heavy Weight Shears, 8" Lightweight Shears, 4.5" Thread Snipper or 120" Retractable Tape Measure) when you check out.