Dressmaker Quality and Style Scores: Grain, Seams, Fit and Styles Explained

Every dress in Dressmaker gets a quality score from 0 to 100 and a score for each style such as Elegant or Gothic. Quality comes from how you cut, sew and size the dress, and style comes from what the dress is made of. Both follow fixed rules, so once you know them you can see exactly where a dress lost its points and fix one stuck at 99.

How Quality Is Calculated

Quality combines three parts, each scored out of 100: grain (how straight you cut each piece), seams (how accurately you sew) and fit (how well the mannequin matches the client’s body). Fit only counts when a commission or gift checks quality against a particular person:

The total is rounded to the nearest whole number, so 100 needs at least 99.5.

The version with fit decides the Quality line in a commission’s requirements and the Quality number in its score list while you work. Every client’s gift list also has a Quality line, and that one checks fit against the person receiving the dress. The version without fit sets the quality bonus on a dress’s sale price, the prestige you earn for selling it and whether a gift counts as a success (quality above 80). The Steam achievement for a quality 100 dress also uses it, whether you hand the dress in, sell it or gift it, so a commission dress can earn it even when the fit is off.

Uncut pieces and unsewn seams score 0, so the number climbs as you work and only shows the dress’s real quality once every piece is cut and every seam is sewn.

Grain: Cutting Each Piece

Turn every piece until its grain line is horizontal before you cut. The rotation knob shows the piece’s alignment (Straight, Cross or Bias) and its grain score. Aim for Straight at 100%.

Use the scroll wheel to turn pieces. Each click turns the piece 9° and snaps it to an exact multiple of 9°, so ten clicks make a precise quarter turn. Dragging the knob turns the piece freely and can leave it a fraction of a degree off. That still reads 100% on the knob but scores a little less.

Each piece’s grain score drops quickly as the grain line tilts away from horizontal. A grain line within 22.5° of vertical counts as Cross grain and can only reach 75. Past 22.5° from both, the knob says Bias and the piece scores 0. In the table, the cross grain column measures the angle from vertical:

Bias-cut pieces show Bias or Not Bias on the knob instead. Turn them until it reads Bias and 100%. Two positions a quarter turn apart both score the full 100, and there’s no cross grain penalty. These patterns have at least one bias-cut piece: Bias Cut Skirt, Fae Sleeve, Front Lace Bodice, Front Lace Stays, Gothic Collar, Koi Skirt, Long Cuffed Sleeve, Mandarin Collar, One Shoulder Bodice, Peasant Sleeve, Peter Pan Collar, Pointed Collar, Pussybow Collar, Qipao Collar, Queen Anne Bodice, Ruched Bodice, Ruched Sweetheart Bodice, Short Puffed Sleeve, Twilight Hour Bodice, Upright Frill Collar, Upturned Yoked Bodice, Whirlpool Collar, Wrap Bodice.

The grain score is locked in when you cut, so check the knob right before cutting. Dragging an uncut piece by its edge swings it around as it follows the mouse, which can knock a carefully aligned piece out of line. Your dress’s grain is the average of all its pieces, and every piece counts equally whatever its size.

Seams: Sewing Accurately

Every stitch is scored by how far the needle is from the pattern line when it lands. The percentage on the sewing screen shows the seam’s running score, and the accuracy light shows how the current stitch will score:

If the needle drifts about 2.25 times as far from the line as the edge of the green zone, the machine jams: the fabric jumps back to your last good stitch and the seam loses 10 points. The seam’s score is the average of its stitches minus the jam penalties.

Press R to restart a seam from the beginning. That clears both the stitches and any jams, so restart straight away after a jam or a bad wobble instead of finishing the seam.

The controls that help most:

• Hold Space or the right mouse button to feed the fabric, and steer with A and D or the left and right arrow keys. You can also drag the fabric with the left mouse button to turn it.
• W and S (or the up and down arrows) change the speed. Stitches are spaced by distance, so a slower speed doesn’t cost you anything and gives you more time to correct.
• Turn on Sewing Assist in the pause menu and the machine steers toward the line for you while you sew with Space or the right mouse button. It stops steering while you hold the left mouse button.

One pass at the machine can sew several seams at once, and they all get that pass’s score. Longer seams count for more in the dress’s seam total. To redo a bad seam, use the seam ripper on the mannequin. It unpicks every seam on the piece you click, and you’ll have to sew all of them again.

Fit: Sizing the Mannequin

Fit compares the mannequin’s bust, waist and hips with the client’s real body. Turn the three gears until the mannequin’s measurements match what you measured on the client.

The Mannequin accuracy reading on the measuring sheet compares the mannequin with the numbers you wrote down for the client. It reads 100% when all three are within 0.3 cm, and a warning appears next to any measurement more than 2 cm off. The fit score uses the client’s real body instead, so a sloppy measurement on the client carries straight into the dress. Your numbers for each client are saved and filled in next time, so measuring carefully once pays off for every later commission.

Measure the client at the same heights the mannequin uses. On the mannequin, the tape only records when it sits on the band for that measurement, and a body gets wider or narrower as you move up or down.

Tiny differences cost nothing. Past that, the penalty grows with the square of the error, so one measurement that’s badly off hurts more than small errors spread across all three. This table shows the fit score for a gear set wrong by a share of its full turn from smallest to largest:

Selling never looks at fit, so a dress from the New Dress tab can go on a mannequin of any size. If you’re making it as a gift, use Load Measurement to pick the person you’ll give it to, then size the mannequin to their numbers.

Why Your Dress Scores 99

A dress needs 99.5 to round up to 100, so a single small slip anywhere leaves it at 99. These are the usual causes:

• One cross-grain piece. In an eight-piece dress with perfect seams, one piece cut on the cross grain drops quality to 99.
• Seams averaging 98.5. With perfect grain, that gives 99.1, which rounds to 99. A few orange stitches on a long seam are enough.
• One gear 1.5% off. For a commission, that gives a fit score of 95.5 and quality 99, even with perfect cutting and sewing.

With perfect seams, your pieces’ grain has to average about 98.75 or better for quality 100. With perfect grain, your seams have to average about 99.2 or better.

Quality in Commission Requirements

Most commissions that list a Quality line ask for 80. The strictest are Crowning Glory (95) and Another Encore (90), so save your most careful work for those. Not Haughty works the other way: the dress must have quality 70 or lower, so stop short of your best work. Each commission’s full list is in the Commissions guide.

Style Scores

Each style score adds up three things. The total is rounded up, and a total below 0 counts as 0:

• Patterns: the bodice, skirt, sleeves and collar each add their own value for the style, which can be negative.
• Fabric: each fabric has a value for the style, scaled by how much of the dress it covers. The skirt counts for 40% of the dress, the bodice 35%, sleeves 15% and the collar 10%. A dress without sleeves or a collar shares their part among the rest, so a dress made entirely from one fabric gets that fabric’s full value. Only pieces already on the mannequin count.
• Accessories: the accessory with the biggest value for a style counts in full, the next counts 85%, the one after 72% and so on. Ten identical buttons add about 5.3 times one button’s value, and no amount of them adds more than 6.7 times. Trim and lace count once for every metre you sew on, and a part metre counts in proportion.

Every accessory also adds 1 Elaborate on top of its own values, with no reduction for quantity. Keep that in mind when a commission wants Elaborate kept low.

The style bars in the sketchbook are a preview. Each bar adds the patterns’ value to a range running from the lowest to the highest value among the fabrics you’ve dragged onto the page. They leave out accessories and how much of the dress each fabric will cover, so check the real scores on the mannequin before you submit.

Best Fabrics for Each Style

Fabric is usually the biggest part of a style score. Top value is what the fabric adds when it covers the whole dress. The fabrics listed are the earliest and cheapest that reach it; fabrics marked with a prestige level appear in the shop once you reach that level.

Best Patterns for Each Style

Each cell gives the highest value that type of pattern adds to the style, followed by the patterns that reach it. Starting patterns are listed first, then friendship unlocks in the order you’d get them; the Pattern Unlocks guide shows who unlocks each one.

Best Accessories for Each Style

Per piece is the value of one accessory, or of one metre of trim or lace. The accessories listed are the earliest and cheapest that reach it.

Fabric and Colour Percentages

Requirements such as Velvet: at least 50% or Black: at least 50% measure how much of the dress’s surface uses that fabric type or colour. Big pieces count for more than small ones, so put the required fabric on the skirt and bodice. A fabric with two colours splits its area evenly between them: a red-and-black fabric covering the whole dress counts as 50% red and 50% black. To shop for a requirement like Black: at least 50%, filter the Fabric Swatches tool by Black and compare the shades side by side before you buy enough for the skirt and bodice.