The nighty is the garment most tailors learn first and think about least. There is no fitting, no darts, no zip and nobody stands in front of a mirror worrying about the shoulder line. It looks like the easy money in the shop.
It is also the garment where more shops quietly lose money than anywhere else, for two reasons that have nothing to do with skill. The first is that a nighty which cannot go over the customer's head is a total loss, not an alteration. The second is that a cotton nighty cut to the exact length is two inches shorter after three washes, and the customer will blame the tailor, not the fabric.
This is the full nighty cutting measurement chart, the yoke and gather ratios that decide the whole garment, the shrinkage allowance almost nobody adds, and how the numbers change when nighties are cut in volume.
A Nighty Is Not a Maxi Dress
Four garments get ordered using the same word. They are not the same draft and they do not carry the same price.
Nighty
Loose from the yoke down, no darts, no zip, pulled on over the head. Comfort is the entire specification. Four to six inches of ease at the bust, which would look like a mistake on any other garment and is exactly right here.
Maxi
A fitted bodice with a shaped waist, often with a zip or a back opening, and a flared skirt below. It is a dress worn as nightwear rather than nightwear. It takes two to three inches of ease, darts, and a proper fitting, and it should be priced as a dress.
Kaftan
Cut straight and wide from the shoulder with no yoke and no gathers at all, usually with wide dropped sleeves. The simplest of the four to cut and the one that uses the most fabric per piece.
Feeding Nighty
A nighty with concealed vertical openings in the front for nursing, either as a double layer or with hidden plackets under a decorative panel. Steady demand, higher price, and the one variation worth learning properly because the customer who needs one needs several.
Confirm which of the four before writing a single number, and quote accordingly. A maxi priced as a nighty is a loss on every piece.
The 10 Measurements Every Nighty Needs
Fewer numbers than any other garment in this series. That is not a reason to skip the sheet, because the two at the bottom are the ones that decide whether the garment works at all.
# | Measurement | Where it is taken | Typical ease |
|---|
1 | Nighty Length | Shoulder at the neck, straight down to the required hem | plus shrinkage, see below |
2 | Bust | Fullest part of the bust, tape level all the way round | 4-6 in |
3 | Shoulder | Shoulder point to shoulder point, across the back | 0.5 in |
4 | Yoke Depth | Shoulder at the neck, down to where the gathers will start | as ordered |
5 | Neck Width | Neck point to neck point, across the base of the neck | must clear the head |
6 | Front Neck Depth | Shoulder seam at the neck, down the centre front | as ordered |
7 | Back Neck Depth | Centre back neck bone, straight down the back | as ordered |
8 | Sleeve Length | Shoulder point down the arm to the required hem | as ordered |
9 | Sleeve Round | Fullest part of the upper arm | 3-4 in |
10 | Hem Sweep | The finished width all the way round at the hem | set by the gather ratio |
Note the bust ease. Four to six inches is double what a kurti takes and ten times what a fitted blouse takes. A nighty cut at dress ease is a nighty the customer will not wear, and she will not come back to explain why.
The Yoke Is the Whole Garment
On a classic nighty the yoke is the only fitted part. Everything below it is gathered fullness, and two numbers control how the finished garment looks: how deep the yoke is, and how much fabric is gathered into it.
Yoke depth, measured from the shoulder at the neck:
- Classic yoke: 6 to 8 inches, finishing just below the bust
- Empire yoke: 12 to 14 inches, finishing under the bust with the gathers falling from there
- Deep or panelled yoke: 16 to 18 inches, finishing at the natural waist
Gather ratio, meaning the width of fabric gathered into each inch of yoke:
- Light gather at 1.5 times: economical on fabric, falls close, suits a stiff cotton
- Standard gather at 2 times: the usual boutique finish and the safe default
- Full gather at 2.5 times: for maternity, for larger sizes, and for soft fabrics that need volume to hang well
Write the ratio on the sheet. A customer who liked her last nighty and asks for the same again is asking for the same gather, and there is no way to give it to her if nobody recorded the number. This is the same problem as the flare on an A-line kurti, and it has the same fix.
It Has to Go Over the Head
A nighty has no zip, no back opening and usually no buttons. That means the neck opening is the only way in, and it has to clear the widest part of the head.
An adult head measures around twenty-two to twenty-two and a half inches at its widest. A pull-on neck opening therefore needs to finish at roughly twenty-three inches all the way round, and a neckline that measures less than that has to have an opening somewhere: a front placket, a button or two at the back, or a keyhole with a tie.
This is where a nighty becomes a total loss rather than an alteration. A garment too tight at the bust can be let out. A neck opening cut too small on a gathered yoke cannot be enlarged without recutting the yoke and re-gathering everything attached to it, by which time it is cheaper to start again.
Check it before the yoke is stitched, not after. Lay the yoke pieces together, measure the finished neckline, and compare it against twenty-three inches or against the customer if she is in the shop.
Shrinkage: The Allowance Almost Nobody Adds
A nighty is washed more often than anything else the customer owns, frequently in hard water and often by hand with the fabric wrung out. Cotton and cotton blends shrink three to five per cent in the first few washes, and almost all of it is in the length.
On a fifty-two inch nighty, four per cent is just over two inches. That is the difference between a garment that reaches the ankle and one that sits at mid-calf, and the customer will report it as the tailor having cut it short.
There are two honest ways to handle it. Pre-wash and dry the fabric before cutting, which is accurate and slow and only realistic on single orders. Or add the allowance: two inches on the length and half an inch on the sleeve for cotton, a little less for a poly-cotton blend, and note on the sheet which you did.
For bulk orders always add the allowance rather than pre-washing. Pre-washing a hundred metres of fabric costs more in time and handling than the cloth saved, and it introduces its own variation in colour across the lot.
Standard Nighty Size Chart (Ready Reference)
For stock production and remote orders. All values are finished garment measurements in inches, for a classic yoke nighty at a standard two times gather, with the shrinkage allowance already included in the length.
Size | Finished Bust | Length | Shoulder | Yoke Depth | Sleeve Length | Hem Sweep |
|---|
S (34) | 38 | 52 | 14 | 7 | 8 | 80 |
M (36) | 40 | 53 | 14.5 | 7 | 8 | 84 |
L (38) | 42 | 53 | 15 | 7.5 | 8.5 | 88 |
XL (40) | 44 | 54 | 15.5 | 7.5 | 9 | 92 |
XXL (42) | 46 | 54 | 16 | 8 | 9 | 96 |
3XL (44) | 48 | 55 | 16.5 | 8 | 9 | 100 |
Height moves the length and nothing else. A customer at a 46 inch bust and five feet tall takes the XXL body with a 50 inch length, and cutting her the charted 54 is how a nighty ends up being trodden on.
The Four Mistakes That Cause Most Re-Cutting
1. The Neck Opening Would Not Go Over the Head
The only fault in this article that cannot be altered. Check the finished neckline against twenty-three inches before the yoke is stitched, or build in a placket.
2. No Shrinkage Allowance Was Added
Two inches on the length for cotton. Without it the nighty is correct on the day and short within a month, and the customer has no way of knowing the fabric did it rather than the tailor.
3. The Gather Ratio Was Never Recorded
Nighty on a sheet describes a category, not a garment. One and a half times and two and a half times produce visibly different results from identical body measurements, and a repeat customer will notice immediately.
4. Dress Ease Was Used Instead of Nighty Ease
Two to three inches at the bust is right for a maxi and wrong for a nighty, which wants four to six. The customer will not complain, she will simply stop wearing it and order the next one somewhere else.
The Pieces a Nighty Produces
A classic yoke nighty is the shortest pattern list in this series:
- Front yoke, cut on the fold, with the neckline shaped
- Back yoke, cut on the fold
- Front body, a wide rectangle or gentle A-shape, gathered into the front yoke
- Back body, the same, gathered into the back yoke
- Sleeve pair, usually a simple straight or slightly puffed cap
- Neck binding or facing, cut on the bias
A feeding nighty adds the inner front panel and the concealed placket strips. A kaftan drops the yoke entirely and cuts the front and back as single wide pieces from the shoulder.
Where the Money Actually Is: Cutting Nighties in Volume
Per piece, a nighty is the lowest-margin garment in the shop. Nobody is paying a fitting charge for something with no fitting, and the customer knows roughly what it should cost. On a single order the margin is thin and there is no way to argue it up.
At volume the arithmetic changes completely. The pattern does not change between customers in stock sizes, the shapes are simple and nest tightly, and there is no fitting stage at all. That makes the nighty close to the ideal garment for layered cutting: spread twenty or forty plies, cut the whole lay in one pass, and the per-piece cutting cost collapses.
This is why nighty and kaftan production is one of the most common reasons a small unit buys its first laser cutting machine for garments. The garment is simple enough that nothing is lost to automation, the volumes are high enough to keep the machine busy, and the fabric saved on a nested marker on plain cotton goes straight to the bottom line.
If your shop is cutting nighties one at a time with shears, the garment is not the problem. The method is.
What Changes When the Nighty Is Drafted on a Computer
There are only ten measurements, so nobody buys software to draft one nighty. The value is entirely in repetition and in the numbers that would otherwise go unrecorded.
With pattern making software, the yoke depth, the gather ratio and the shrinkage allowance are stored against the order rather than remembered. A repeat customer gets the identical garment, and a new staff member produces the same nighty the senior cutter would, because the three numbers that make it work are in the pattern and not in one person's habits.
For stock production the whole size run grades in one step and feeds straight into a marker, so a forty-ply lay is nested once and cut once. And a full size set is stored, so next season's run starts from the pattern that already sold rather than from a fresh draft.
Good Nighty Cutting Starts With the Measurement Sheet
Ten measurements make this the shortest sheet in the shop, and the shortest sheets are the ones that get skipped entirely. That is precisely why the same three faults come back again and again.
Add three lines to your nighty sheet: the gather ratio, the shrinkage allowance, and the finished neck opening. None of them is a body measurement, all three decide whether the garment works, and together they cost about fifteen seconds to write down.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much ease should a nighty have at the bust?
Four to six inches. That is roughly double a kurti and far more than a fitted blouse, which takes about half an inch. Comfort is the whole specification on this garment, and dress ease of two to three inches produces a nighty the customer quietly stops wearing.
How much fabric does a nighty need?
As a working figure in 44 inch fabric, about 3 metres for a standard size at a two times gather and 3.5 metres at a two and a half times gather. A kaftan takes a little more because it is cut wide from the shoulder rather than gathered.
Why does a nighty come out short after washing?
Cotton shrinks three to five per cent in the first few washes and nearly all of it is in the length. On a 52 inch nighty that is over two inches. Either pre-wash the fabric before cutting or add two inches to the length and half an inch to the sleeve, and note on the sheet which you did.
What is the difference between a nighty and a maxi?
A nighty is loose from a yoke down with no darts, no zip and four to six inches of ease, pulled on over the head. A maxi has a fitted bodice, darts, usually a zip or back opening, and two to three inches of ease. They are different drafts and a maxi should be priced as a dress.
How wide should the neck opening be on a pull-on nighty?
About twenty-three inches finished, all the way round, because an adult head measures twenty-two to twenty-two and a half at its widest. Anything smaller needs a front placket, back buttons or a keyhole opening. Check it before the yoke is stitched, because a small neck on a gathered yoke cannot be enlarged afterwards.
Cut Nighties in Volume With Fashion Dot
Fashion Dot has been building tailoring technology for Indian tailors since 2003, and nightwear units are among the fastest to see a return on it. The software grades a full size run in one step and nests the marker for layered cutting, the machines cut twenty to forty plies in a single pass, everything works in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Kannada, and on-site installation and training are included. See the pricing page for current plans.
See a Full Nighty Size Run Cut in One Pass
Bring your current nighty pattern to a free demo and we will grade the size run, nest the marker and show you the fabric it saves against the way you cut now, on the garment you already make the most of. Book a free demo or call us on 84486 38639.