Q&A with Muna and Broad

Earlier this month I had the distinct pleasure of chatting with Jess and Leila, who launched their indie pattern company Muna and Broad, in 2019. We had a delightful conversation at a Bay Area Sewists virtual meetup about their sewing experiences, fitting, sizing, favorite designers, their company, and more. If you’re not familiar with Muna and Broad, they focus on “modern sewing patterns for plus-sized bodies,” according to their website. Jess (@fat.bobbin.girl) is based in New Zealand and began sewing in 2017. Leila (@leila_sews) studied fashion production in college and is based in Canada.

We spoke for about an hour-and-a-half and what follows below are some of the dynamic duo’s answers. I say “some” because I wasn’t able to save the live transcript generated by Zoom. These are the answers they prepared in advance of our conversation, plus some additional things that came up during the meetup, which Jess added. As you can see, we had a good time and I’m sure you’ll enjoy learning more about them! (You can find more Q&As here.)

Sewing background

When did you start sewing and who taught you to sew?
Leila: My mum and grandmother can sew and I sewed a few simple things with my mum probably around 10 years old I learned more formally at high school (age 12) and then went on to study fashion production at college.
Jess: I started sewing in 2017 because the style of clothes in natural fibres wasn’t available in my size range at any price. Even ES wasn’t making my size at the time. I went to some night classes but you didn’t get a lot of time with the tutor, so I quickly learned that I needed to go in with specific questions

What was the first garment you sewed?
Jess: Before I’d started sewing I’d done lots of research to find the few patterns that existed in my size, so my first garment was a dress from a European designer who had a couple of plus-size options. I was really surprised to find that although it kind of fit, it didn’t really accommodate my arms, so the dress didn’t get much wear! 
Leila: I made a blue chambray elastic waist skirt at school. I don’t think I ever wore it!

What is your favorite thing to sew?
Jess: I like to sew quick projects because I’m pretty impatient. At the end of the day I’d like to have something to wear. Anything longer than that and I risk losing steam on the project and it joining my UFO pile! 
Leila: I’m the opposite for the most part! I like detailed projects that are challenging, like shirts, coats, tailored garments, etc. My actual favourite thing to sew is a continuous lap placket!

Favorite Fabrics

What are your favorite fabrics to work with?
We both love natural fibres!
Jess: A nice weighty linen fabric is so easy to cut, sew and wear but I also love silk noil!
Leila: Wool! I love sewing with woven wools so much! I love how mouldable it is – you can shape it with steam – and most woven wools are not at all shifty to sew. There isn’t anything more satisfying than a beautifully set in jacket shoulder with a slight roll!

Garment construction and sewing advice

Leila, how did you learn garment construction?
I studied fashion production at college (the technical side of fashion – patternmaking, grading, and garment construction) and have worked in film, theatre, and as a seamstress for a couture studio and as a freelancer. After working in the industry, I decided to pursue a different career and now have a Ph.D. in biomechanics.

What’s the best sewing advice you’ve received?
Jess: All my sewing advice comes from Leila! I’m always learning, and especially unlearning! You need to know the rules and why they’re there before you break them, so I feel like when Leila tells me a shortcut, I know it can be trusted. This also means when she tells me bold advice like ‘a french seam is an inappropriate finish for linen’, I also have to trust her.
Leila: It’s not a convenient sound bite but advice to grade the seams aggressively is probably the best. [To be clear, Leila means removing bulk from seams, not grading pattern size.]

Do you have any favorite sewing books or garment construction books? Which ones do you recommend?
Leila: I generally prefer the older ones in terms of recommending for people learning things – like the vintage Vogue Sewing book. But I don’t have a particular favourite for myself.

Fitting issues

What are your common issues you have come across with fitting?
Probably not the answer you’re looking for but one of the common things we end up chatting about is actually ‘overfitting’ and how often sewists are aiming for wrinkle free garments, which aren’t actually conducive to moving around in, or actually even sitting in the garments. 

So often we’re much more critical about garments we make than we are about the ready-to-wear garments we buy, and a lot of that is from the pressure from social media to constantly be tackling new projects, learning new skills, and generally upgrading our sewing. 

Some of the issues that we both found prior to Muna and Broad is that we were both needing to do full bicep adjustments on patterns where the size range technically included us but hadn’t actually accommodated the typical arm measurement at that size. Also needing to do FBA [full bust adjustment] and full belly adjustments on garments for the same reason.

Launching Muna and Broad

What made you decide to launch your own indie pattern company in 2019?
Jess: We both had clothes we wanted to wear which patterns didn’t exist for, often because the things we wanted weren’t traditionally considered ‘flattering.’

How it started: Leila sent me some pants that she’d drafted for herself and since we were very similar measurements, she offered the pattern to me. The pants were good and we decided to do a collab and release them as a free pattern. I had a blog and more followers than Leila so basically I just got invited along for the ride because she didn’t want to set those things up just to offer a free pattern. 

We put the free pattern out through an email newsletter, and there were only three sizes and the instructions were very limited (the pattern also had no waistband, so you had to draft your own). We soon realised that people wanted more instructions, more hand-holding and things fleshed out a bit more (basically because it’s hard to become super fluent in garment sewing when nobody is making patterns available in your size. So, we set out to do that and we’ve gone from there.

What were the challenges of launching your pattern company? Were there any surprises along the way?
I think we were pretty lucky that there’s two of us and that we’ve both got different interests and skill sets. This meant we avoided steep learning curves because we weren’t learning how to make a website, or how to use Illustrator. It also means that we’re not just one person second-guessing ourselves!

Working in different countries

How do you manage working in different countries across different time zones? 
Jess: Now that Muna and Broad is my main job, not having pesky 9-5 work hours interrupting my availability is super helpful for our work across time zones.

A lot of our correspondence happens over Instagram chat, but we’ve also developed a system with Google docs so that information can be sent and tracked in a way that doesn’t require us to both be out of bed at the same time.

We do one video chat per week generally which is actually just the weekly chat we do for our Patreons and we have a catchup beforehand. If we need to we’ll video chat more.

Muna and Broad’s first patterns

How long did it take for you to launch your first pattern?
We actually launched the Glebe Pants as a free pattern with three sizes (ours being the smallest) and really brief instructions. We quickly worked out that folks wanted more help, and that we couldn’t assume that folks had a lot of sewing knowledge because it’s likely that, like us, they didn’t have many pattern options to sew. We finally released the updated Glebe Pants in our new expanded size range earlier this year.

Because we took a bit of a circuitous route to releasing, it’s tough to put a time frame on it (especially because when we put out the Glebe as a free pattern, we didn’t intend to start a ‘pattern company’

What are your most popular patterns?
Our Torrens Box Top and Glebe Pants remain our two most popular patterns, and they’re also the first two that we released. They’re both great for beginners, and super quick to make.

The Torrens was designed to be cup-size flexible and has a dropped shoulder, so it lets you skip all of those steep learning curves that plus-size sewists often come up against as soon as they pick up sewing. There’s no need for a full-bust adjustment, a full bicep adjustment and it also doesn’t really lend itself to grading, so you really just pick a size and go!

The Glebe remain the pants that Leila and I wear the most and they look great in linen and wool (two fabrics we both love). The actually construction of them is very straightforward (even for elastic-waist pants), so they’re a super satisfying quick-sew.

Fashion production and design

Leila, you studied fashion production in college and took classes in pattern making, grading, and garment construction. Which classes were the most helpful in designing your pattern line?
Oh wow! Home sewing patterns are so different from industry patterns in many ways so it’s really a combination of all of those. They are so interconnected (you have to make decisions about construction as you’re patternmaking, for example). I’m also really grateful I learned how to use Illustrator way back when it was in its first or second release!

Jess: Leila learnt illustrator from one of her previous jobs, so that was a super helpful skill that she brought to Muna and Broad because she already knew how to illustrate our instructions and layout the instruction booklets, etc. Also, Leila’s day job in biomechanics and her experience living in a fat body have also been super helpful, because there aren’t currently any ‘how to draft for fat body’ technical drafting books.

What’s the best design advice you’ve received?
Is it design advice if it’s just something that Leila said? Two ideas of hers stand out to me, and the first is the importance of proportion. For us this means larger pockets, larger zips, larger details to balance the proportion on larger bodies.

The second thing is that there’s actually right and wrong ways of sewing things — that some things are actually just not right, even if you might see them in other patterns. 

Advice on starting a pattern line

What advice do you have for someone who wants to start their own pattern line?
I think just to be aware of and to know yourself- what do you like to do, what tasks do you not like to do? Especially if you’re just 1 person, you’re kind of operating in a vacuum and you’re responsible for everything, so you won’t just be doing the tasks that you enjoy!

Also having an awareness of who your customer is, who you’re serving. Having an “avatar” in your mind of your ideal customer (maybe it’s you because you’ve started a pattern line to fill a gap that you’ve noticed). And if you’re not solving an issue or filling a gap, who are you hoping will be using your patterns?

It’s also important to make sure your product (patterns!) is as good as possible, so ensure you’ve made lots of patterns for people that have different bodies to yours. Some professional education at your local fashion school or community college can help ensure there aren’t technical errors in your drafting. Drafting a pattern for yourself is quite different to producing a size chart and a block for production. 

The Muna and Broad size chart doesn’t fit either of us exactly, we’re both still grading between sizes and lengthening or shortening things to accommodate our height (we’re both 5’6 but have quite different proportions), so it’s not like Leila is just drafting the Muna and Broad patterns for her own body measurements.

Pattern considerations

What makes a “good” pattern for the home sewing industry?
The most important thing for home sewing patterns is that they set the home sewist up for success! That means a pattern that is likely to fit a typical body of that size, clear instructions, and maybe some interesting construction techniques to keep things fun and interesting. We both have strong feelings about patterns that expand into plus-sizes, but where most folks in those sizes will need to do a full-bicep adjustment not actually accommodating typical bodies in that size range.

We think it’s important that our construction methods result in high-quality garments because as sewists, we spend lots of time, energy, and also money on our makes. Home sewing sits in that nice sweet spot where, unlike production sewing, it is possible to do some hand-finishing, couture techniques where the results would really make for a much better outcome. Leila loves to include lovely details and finishes while she’s drafting and we hope that you will feel proud and delighted every time you put one of our garments on.

Muna and Broad pattern releases

What factors do you consider in deciding which patterns to design and release?
Mostly we release things that are gaps in our wardrobe or which solve an issue and fill a gap at the same time. Generally we’ll try to ensure that the pattern has something that specifically makes it a great fit for large bodies, whether it’s a neckline that curves in just the right way to fit around the back of a neck, or a pocket with large openings for fat hands to get into.

We do get lots of requests from folks about particular patterns, but we have found that folks aren’t actually as keen to tackle big projects as they think they are. Our Torrens Box Top, which is beginner friendly and cup-size flexible, remains one of our top-selling patterns even now simply because it’s such a straightforward, stress-free project.

We also try to think about the aesthetic of a garment and how it can fit in with the other patterns we’ve already released. We really wanted to make sure that we weren’t putting out patterns which would be wardrobe orphans. Although many pattern companies (and RTW clothing companies) are expanding their sizes, you really can’t presume that fat folks will be able to find clothes to pair with an item, which is why we make sure that our patterns work together as part of a large capsule.

How many Muna and Broad patterns do you release each year?
There’s no set number of patterns that we release, but in the last two years we’ve released 26 patterns and we’ve also got lots of Patreon Pattern Bonuses that we’ve released monthly for about a year and a half now. We released a lot of patterns in the first year during the summer (which Leila had off from work). 

This gave us a good number of patterns in the back catalogue which meant that sales could keep chugging along in the background while we spent a little longer getting things out in the world.

Can you share a few of your designs? [We did a screen share of the Muna and Broad website and they showed some photos, such as the ones below.]

Muna and Broad on Patreon

How long have you been on Patreon and what are you offering for folks there?
We’ve had a Patreon since August 2020, and it started as a way for folks to support our work and grew into a lovely little community.

We put out little video chats every week, share behind-the-scenes info, we have a forum for patreons and we also have monthly sewing Zoom circles too. The top two tiers of support get access to monthly bonus patterns/pattern expansions and a standing discount off our patterns. Our maker level supporters also get the occasional physical mail from us (like limited edition labels, custom-stamped jeans patches, Leila’s favourite needles, and other special notions).

Future Muna and Broad patterns?

Will the Muna and Broad lineup include athletic leggings in the future?
Our method for settling on designs is very much based on what sparks our interest at any one time. Many times we’ve felt sure that we know what the next release will be, only to have it put on the backburner when the project isn’t sparking joy. We think that’s important because Leila has a full time job and a family — so I’d love drafting our Muna and Broad patterns to be as stress free as possible (as stress-free as drafting patterns and revising them can be)!

Currently, we have no plans for athletic leggings, but it wouldn’t be wise to say ‘never’!

Do Muna and Broad have any plans to design a woven vest pattern?
Jess: Because of how our design process goes, that’s hard to say. I have been trying to convince Leila about a quilted long-line vest, but I’d say that we’re unlikely to jump on the current vest or tabard trends that are popping up on Instagram sewing circles.

Size expansion of indie companies

More indie pattern companies are offering expanded size ranges, going up to at least hip 50″ but it has taken a long time for this to happen. Why do you think it has taken so long for companies to expand their size range?
If they’re expanding up to a 50” hip that still doesn’t include either of us.
Leila: For designers who have been to fashion school, plus sizes are just not considered! There’s a lot of anti-fat bias in the industry (as we know) and the focus is on very small, typical fashion model sized clothing. Textbooks also don’t address plus sizes appropriately. Personally, we don’t think that patternmaking for plus sizes is any more difficult than patternmaking for other sizes but you have to take the same amount of care and attention to fit as in any sample size.
Jess:  We don’t consider ourselves to be an inclusive brand, because we know that there are sizes that we’re excluding. We’ve tried to be as inclusive of large bodies as we can be, offering grading to folks who our sizes are too small for, and also being super responsive via email suggesting sizes, suggesting fit fixes, etc. We’ve also tried to be inclusive by thinking about how bodies change throughout the size range, so we’re not simply grading up and down from our sample size, but actually making tweaks and changes every couple of sizes so that we’re including and properly fitting those bodies at that size.

Anti-fat bias is the root of a lot of the issues. Whether that comes in the form of ‘fat bodies are difficult to draft for’, ‘fat people don’t want to wear designs like mine because they won’t flatter’, or ‘I don’t want to sell patterns to fat people’. At this point, businesses who haven’t expanded are likely avoiding it because they actually don’t want to include fat bodies. The exception to this being pattern designers that are actually incredibly small businesses, just 1 person doing everything. For these folks any changes to their size chart will be a huge amount of work to undertake and won’t necessarily be something that turns a profit for them immediately.

Hip size

What hip size would you like to see pattern companies go up to?
It’s not really possible to put a definite measurement on ‘inclusion’, because you’re always going to be excluding someone. Both of us sit around the 54-59” hip mark which puts us right at the top of the recently expanded size ranges of many of the recently expanded size ranges for the pattern companies that even do include us. We love seeing that quite a few places are expanding above a 70” hip, and also when other companies offer to grade up for folks who aren’t included in their size range!

Muna and Broad design inspiration and favorites

What inspires your Muna and Broad’s designs?
Jess: Lots of my inspiration comes from other makers, but also from slow-fashion, high-fashion, and vintage styles clothes (think oversized wool coats from the Met archives).
Leila: Most of my inspiration comes from instagram – other makers but also stores and designers. Sometimes the influence is really oblique. I might see a beautiful fitted bodice detail and that will inspire a cuff on an oversized sleeve for me!

Who are your favorite designers?
Jess: I’m often scrolling through the La Garçonne website — I like that a lot of the stuff on there isn’t overtly feminine. I love a relaxed fit, minimalist vibe and also pleats and collars and deep hems in natural fabrics. I also really loved the Emilia Wickstead collab with Woolmark. There were a lot of pics taken here in NZ of a lot of great wool garments with plenty of pleats!
Leila: I like the work of 7115 by Szeki and also Black Crane. I admire Eileen Fisher a lot in terms of sustainability, quality fabrics, and minimalist designs as well as remaining one of the only designers at her price point that cater to plus sizes. Less for direct inspo, I like Alexander McQueen (though there has been some controversy with him as a person).

If sewists are looking for inspiration on plus sizes on Instagram, what hashtags do you recommend following?
Jess: Great question, but I feel like the answer really depends on what your style is! Before Muna and Broad existed, I found Leila in hashtags pertaining to plus-size minimalist sewing (but I can’t remember the exact hashtag, I’m afraid).

My advice would be that if you find someone with style that you like, check out the hashtags on their post and you might find some other folks in those hashtags!