What is a Breton top?

The Breton top trend has its roots in the northern region of France. In the mid-nineteenth century, the white and navy top, originally referred to as the marinière or matelot shirt, was the uniform for seafarers of the French navy. The popularity of this nautical attire in Breton led to its name – the Breton stripe. In 1846, Queen Victoria helped to boost the trend when she dressed her son in an adorable sailor suit on a public outing. Since then, ‘la mode Breton’ has enjoyed a sartorial shift from ship to shops with prolific designers including Coco Chanel and Jean-Paul Gautier honouring the trend.

Free sewing patterns for a Breton top

If you want to make your own Breton top, just look out for any long-sleeve t-shirt pattern and use a striped fabric! These are some of our favourite free t-shirt sewing patterns to download and sew today.

Tilly and the Buttons Free T-shirt Pattern

Keen as Mustard

Miranda long-sleeve tee

How to style a Breton top

I’ve got a confession – whenever I’m on a photoshoot and I don’t know how to style an item of clothing, my hands immediately reach for a Breton stripe top! We have a few in the studio wardrobe and they are by far and away our most-used pieces. They can be dressed up or down, and lend any outfit a certain sophisticated je-ne-sais-quoi!

The examples shown are our dungaree dress (issue 81), cord trousers (issue 86) and utility skirt (issue 67).

Where to buy striped jersey fabric in the UK

One of our favourite fabric stores is Minerva, and they have a fantastic range of jersey fabrics, including lots of options in different colours. This lovely cotton-lycra blend is just begging to be sewn into your perfect new handmade Breton top. Fancy a treat? You can get a 20% discount off your next order with Minerva when you join Craftworld Premium! https://craftworld.com/cms/premium/

How do I make sure the stripes match across side seams, sleeves and armholes?

Alright - buckle up, buttercup - we've got a full step-by-step guide for you! You might want to grab a brew and a biscuit because we've got loads of tips and advice for you

General Rules for Matching Stripes

1. The biggest thing about matching up stripes particularly across curves like an armhole or sleeves, is to ensure you get it right at the cutting out stage. No amount of clever sewing will make your stripes match if they weren’t aligned when cut!

2. Work out if the stripe in your fabric is even, or uneven: even or balanced stripes repeat the same pattern on both the right and left of the dominant stripe. To determine if the stripe is even, fold the fabric in half, lining up the dominant stripe. Turn back the top corner of the fabric at a right angle. If lines at the diagonal fold match in both width and colour, the stripe is even or balanced. If the lines don't match, the stripe design is uneven or unbalanced.

An uneven or unbalanced stripe has a different arrangement or colour of stripes to the right and the left of the dominant stripe

When cutting an uneven stripe, it’s best to cut out all your pieces from a single layer, mirroring the pattern pieces to get the left and right half of each piece.

3. Most sewing patterns tell you to cut pieces on the fold or on a double layer of fabric. Whilst that’s okay for most projects, you may find that the stripes slightly misalign on the underside of folded fabric, meaning you might not get a perfect match. To avoid this:

OPTION A: pin into a few stripes every 10cm or so, through the fabric layers working out from folded edge. This will ensure no stripe ‘slippage’ when you cut out a double layer.

OPTION B: cut from a single layer, flipping the pattern pieces to mirror the opposite half of each piece. Whilst this is more time consuming, it is a good idea for slippery or very stretchy fabric. Use a cut piece to help match up stripes on the bias, with a flipped pattern piece for the 2nd half.

4. Decide what direction you want your strips to run. You can use stripes across the body, up and down the body, and even diagonally on the bias. This needs to be decided before you lay out pattern pieces and, if you’re going for bias, you need to make that choice before buying so you’ll have enough. Buy at least another 1-1.5m for matching on the bias.

5. If your front bodice has a dart, use the notch below the dart to match up the stripe rather than the underarm point. If you do match from the underarm, then only the section above the dart will match and everything from the dart down will be mismatched. It’s very rare people will be checking your print matches under your armpit!

Cutting Out From A Single Layer

To cut the centre front panel, first use a right angled ruler to mark up a centre line on the wrong side of your fabric. You need to be able to see it, but you don’t want it showing through to the outside. Line up the centre front of pattern piece along this line, positioning it so the notch below the dart is at the top/middle of a stripe that will be easy to match to back side seam. Pin and cut around this half of the bodice, ensuring all notches and marks are transferred.

Note, if you are working with an undarted pattern, then the corner of the underarm point will be your matching point.

Un-pin the pattern and flip over to the other side of centre line. Double check armhole notches and side seam notches are on the same stripe. Cut out and transfer markings as before

Lay out the centre back panel on the fabric. Use the side of the front piece to ensure you line up the side seam notches along the same stripe. Then cut out and use the flipped pattern to cut the 2nd back. Again ensure that notches are all along the same stripe.

When cutting the sleeve, line up the underarm points of the sleeve with those of the cut front and back pieces, then ensure that the notches of both the front and back armholes are on the same stripe as the corresponding sleeve notches.

Watch the Curve

Sometimes if it’s really important to get a perfect match, say on a jacket sleeve, then I mark out the stitching line, and place a match point on the stitch line rather than focusing on the outer cut edge. The slight circumference difference can make the stripes just a fraction off when using the cut outer edge.

At this point it’s important to say that you won’t always be able to match every stripe across an armhole seam. If you’ve altered your pattern, then the front and back balance may have changed. Sometimes the pattern maker just didn’t get the notches right, and if there’s ease in the sleeve cap then the upper part of the sleeve WILL NOT match as it’s longer than the armhole so therefore has more stripes.

You should be able to get a pleasing match at the front armhole if your stripes are even and you follow the tips provided though.
• Critical match points are the centre front and centre back, side seams, front armholes.
• Non-critical points are the shoulders, darts and occasionally the back armhole.

Pinning Seams to Match Stripes

Pin the corresponding side seam notches with parallel pins. Roll back the seam allowance from the upper side of seam and ensure that the stripe is correctly matched, if it’s not, slide it into the right spot. Then pop a horizontal pin as a cross point to stop everything sliding as you sew. Pin the corners of either end of the seam, and using the same technique ensure all the stripes that can match, do.

Note, if your sleeve has an eased head, you can only match up to the circles that indicate the start of the easing.

Sewing Seams to Ensure Stripe Matching

If you’ve pinned each stripe with crossed pins, then you can probably sew without too many problems. However this is one of those occasions when I do actually tack/baste the seam in place. It’s particularly helpful if you’re planning on overlocking the seam on a knit for example, as you don’t want to work with lots of pins near the blade! A machine baste will hold a seam stable for overlocking and a hand tack will hold together any machine project if you really want to ensure it stays put.

If your machine has an even feed foot or a walking foot can help if the fabric is stretchy or very slippery like silk, these types of feet stop the upper layer of fabric sliding along the under layer as the machine sews by controlling how it feeds the layers under the machine. They’re a good investment!

Matching Seams on Different Sleeve Types

On raglan sleeves, match stripes at the front and back seam lines starting at the shoulder/neckline and work towards the underarm. If working with a dropped shoulder you may choose to have the stripes going the opposite direction to the body, rather than having vertical lines along the sleeve matching the body section.

Stripe matching is an awkward business but when you are successful it makes you feel so proud of your work. Hopefully this article has you feeling confident to get started on a gorgeous striped garment.

This post is sponsored by The Fabric Guys