A Century of Wolf Forms
The SWORDS-SMITH team took a field trip to Wolf Forms to inspect our dress forms and tour the factory in Englewood, New Jersey. Photography by Shay Platz.
Wolf is a family business that has been making dress forms in NYC for almost a century, supplying all parts of the industry from designers to fashion schools across the world. They relocated to New Jersey in the 90’s from the Garment Center in NYC. They use skilled artisans to create each form beginning with pressing paper mache into custom molds that are then cured at 300 degrees in a walk-in kiln. Once extracted, each piece is hand-carved and filed down, adding and subtracting where needed. Then canvas is cut, sewn and stretched over the form. A custom metal rod and stand finishes each form.
Wolf forms is the kind of business that we love to support. Most of the employees have been there for years. Iris (pictured in the outtakes post) creates the covers by eye. The patterns pictured have not been touched in the 12 years she has been on staff. Their product is expertly made by hand with amazing craftsmanship.
