Since 1935 · The Lutterloh System®

The Golden Rule

How a single tape measure, two body dimensions, and a 2,000-year-old mathematical principle let you draft any garment, in any size — perfectly fitted to you.

Since 1935
Continuous publication
339
Supplements published
100,000+
Sewers worldwide
17
Languages

1935 — A vision in Hamburg

Maria Aigenberger — later Maria Lutterloh — looked at the prevailing dressmaking systems and saw waste. Hundreds of pattern sheets per size. Recutting from scratch every time a body changed. Nothing that respected how the human form actually scales.

So she went back to the proportions Leonardo Da Vinci had documented in his Vitruvian Man: the Golden Ratio. The same mathematical relationships that govern shells, cathedrals, and the human body itself.

From those proportions, she built one system that fits everyone — using just two measurements as input.

How the Golden Rule actually works

  • 1. Two measurements

    Bust circumference and hip circumference. That's everything the system needs to know about your body. No size charts, no grading, no tape over twelve different points.

  • 2. Pin & rotate

    Pick a pattern from the 280 in your starter book. Pin the Lutterloh tape at the pivot point. Rotate it across the radial lines — every line tells you where to mark a dot.

  • 3. Connect the dots

    Use the French curve to smooth the lines between dots. You're holding a full-size pattern, scaled to your exact body. Cut, sew, wear.

Why it still works

90 years and counting

Trends shift. Body shapes shift. The mathematical proportions of the human body don't — which is why the Golden Rule has outlasted every pattern company built around fixed sizing.

Bodies haven't changed

Da Vinci's proportions describe the average human body. Hemlines come and go — bust-to-hip ratios don't. The math still applies.

Patterns haven't changed

We've published 339 quarterly supplements since 1935 — the world's longest continuous pattern catalog. New designs, same trusted system.

Now in 17 languages

Der Goldene Schnitt, La Coupe d'Or, De Gouden Snit, O Corte de Ouro — the same principle, named in every language we ship to.

See it in action

Watch the Golden Rule build a pattern in real time, or get the system in your hands today.

Watch the tutorialShop the System