Shirt, trouser or dupatta: which piece is which?

Check in this order

• Decoration. Spread each piece out. The shirt has the busiest design, often with a clear top and bottom: a neckline area, a border along one edge, or sleeves printed side by side in their own block. The trouser piece is one solid colour, perhaps with a narrow printed strip at one end for the hems. The dupatta is designed as a rectangle, with a border on all four sides or heavier pattern at the two ends.
• Weight and sheerness. Hold a single layer up to a window. Dupattas are commonly chiffon, voile, net, organza or a very light lawn. Trouser fabric is usually a plain cotton or cambric, a touch heavier than the shirt and harder to see through.
• Length. As a rough guide, a shirt in one length is often 2.5 to 3 metres, and the trouser piece and dupatta about 2.5 metres each. Length alone will not separate a trouser piece from a dupatta, which is why it comes third.
• Width. Measure from finished edge to finished edge. Shirt and trouser fabric usually share a width, while a dupatta is often a little narrower. Our fabric widths guide and dupatta sizes guide give typical figures.

When the clues disagree

Plain suits blur the clues, because all three pieces may be the same colour, and embroidered suits add pieces that look like leftovers.

• Same cloth, same length: if two pieces really are identical, it makes no difference which becomes the trousers. Tag them A and B and say so.
• Same cloth, different lengths: the longer piece is normally the shirt.
• A shirt in several pieces: embroidered and panel suits often split the shirt into a front, a back and a sleeve piece. Each is short, the front often only a little over a metre, so do not mistake the sleeve piece for an offcut.
• Small extras: a narrow strip of organza or embroidered net is a border, and small shaped pieces are neckline patches or motifs. See using neckline pieces and borders.
• Only two main pieces: the suit may be a two-piece, sold without a dupatta or without trousers.

Tag each piece before it goes anywhere

Once you have decided, label the pieces so the decision survives folding, storage and the post. Pin a paper tag to a corner of each one, through the woven edge where a pin mark will not matter, or tie it on with a loop of thread if the fabric is delicate. Write three things: the name of the piece, its length and width, and which end is the top if the design has a direction. Do not write on the fabric itself.

Then photograph each tagged piece flat in daylight with a tape measure beside it. How to photograph fabric for a quote shows the angles that help.

Sending unlabelled pieces for stitching

You do not have to be certain. Upload the photos with your own guess for each piece when you request a Stitching Only quote, and add anything you know about where the suit came from. For unstitched suit stitching we look at the photos, confirm what each piece suits and whether there is enough for your design, and only then do you post the fabric to us in Pakistan. If you cannot name the cloth either, describing unlabelled fabric lists what to note.