I am surprised I don’t get asked this question more often.  Come to think of it, nobody has ever asked me that. I know its a mouthful, hence the reason most people drop the “Tom’s Sons” part and simply call us “International Pleating.” This is the story of how I came up with the name “Tom’s Sons International Pleating” and the significance behind Tom and his sons. As I have mentioned in...

There are many different types of pleated ruffles, and many ways to make them. Below you will find examples of three garments all pleated in the same style, yet with very different looks.   In this post I will discuss the three basic elements of rectangular shaped ruffles: fullness, stiffness and hems. Fullness of the Pleating By fullness of the pleat I am referring to the amount of fabric that is used in one yard of pleated fabric....

I thought this title sounded a bit more interesting than “How to assign style numbers.” I’ve noticed over the past several years that designers are using the term “numbers” lightly when assigning style numbers to their samples. Instead of assigning a number like 7657743 to a red silk dress, they might name the dress “Scarlet” or something of the sort. To a certain extent this makes sense, as fashion...

If this is the first post you are reading in this blog then you are in the right place.  It recently dawned on me that most people that land on my site are probably wondering what this blog is all about.  Who we are? What do we do? What’s our shtick? So I figured a post that explained the point of this blog and what to expect in future posts would be helpful. Who We Are We are a pleating contractor located in New York City.  If...

Here are some pics of a custom pleating job we did for an event company.  They couldn’t find a silver silk napkin to match the color scheme for their event so they decided to see if they could have some custom made.  Thanks to Google they found the right people for the task!   After several swatches they finally decided on this shade of silk silver charmeuse.   Look below to see what this silk fabric looked like after we...

This post is a culmination of the basic pleating principles I covered in the last 3 blog posts. The importance of understanding this post is to help you identify the different types of pleating used by others and how they incorporate pleating into their designs.  In addition, if you are a fashion designer, it will help you communicate your ideas to pleating contractors such as ourselves. Now that you know the 3 basic components of pleating...