There was a question on a group I belong to about How to take classes to become a professional seamstress without leaving home to go to a fashion school. This young woman is a wife and mother but wants to become a professional seamstress.
Someone else found this link
Hey, Kitty, why is the "young woman" aiming so low??? Gosh, maybe she could be a Stay At Home Mom and learn to be a nuclear physicist! Or a rocket scientist!!! And never leave the house to go to Scientist School!!!!! Heck, I'm a young man, and I want to become a neurosurgeon without leaving home to go to medical school.
Why, oh WHY, do so many people think learning to be a "professional seamstress" is so low-skill they wouldn't have to leave home to learn to do it???
Dear Kitty,
This is an Australian school. From the list of classes, it does not appear that it teaches the true basics--professional sewing, fitting, patternmaking and design. The courses cover theory and "reading" patterns--not how to draft or drape; not how to do quality sewing.
If I were this young woman, I would start small, by doing alterations for neighbors. If she has competent sewing skills and can do fitting, she could offer dressmaking that does not require extensive alteration. She could practice on family members to learn fitting, along with good books on the subjects. Another thought would be to do children's clothing that has special details, like smocking, embroidery, or color coordination, then find a shop nearby that would carry her designs.
I taught fashion design for thirty years. It's hard enough for a graduate to break into the business with credentials from a good school, let alone trying to do it with no school background. But it's possible, if she starts small.
Teri
Olwyn Mary in New Orleans
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I'm a professional dress and costume maker. I have absoluty *NO* professional qualifications in this area at all, but the one qualification I would like (City & Guilds in Fashion) is not taught in an area I could get to by either driving or puplic transport. I did once try to do this one by correspondance course: I gave up after having to send back almost all the course materials for either clarification due to poor grammar and ambiguous spelling rendering them too unclear to make sense, or being just plain wrong (incorrect 'facts' about techniques and fabrics). Without doubt I could TEACH the damned course while never having done it!
Most of the youngsters I see out of fashion schools have lots of lovely qualifications with all sorts of fancy names, but really no idea how a real *wearable* garment is constructed, how fabric behaves in real life, or much in the way of actual sewing skills.
Most of being a good dressmaker/costume maker/tailor is learning how to handle fabric, what their properties are, and practicing the techniques until you can do them almost without thinking. It's not brain surgery, though the two have in common that you need to know the theory and have LOTS of hands-on practical experience to get good!
Dear Kate,
I tried to teach my students the practical side of design, i.e., patternmaking, fitting, sewing techniques (those used in factories), and stressed the importance of textile knowledge in a textile science class. People who don't sew think it is in the same category as cooking. And all one needs to know is how to hold a needle and how to turn on a sewing machine. The problem is that fashion design in high school is one of the first programs to be deleted during budget crunches, along with art and music. Another problem is that fashion design is an orphan. You can find it in home economics programs, agricultural programs, art programs, vocational education programs (where it belongs), and business programs. If you think about it, fashion design (and costume design) has elements of psychology, marketing, science, and business. There are two existing programs in Missouri that teach theory more than practical application. I don't know how they survive. One is so poorly administered that the director forbids his students to interact with students from other schools.
Kate, you're an exception. Most people learn better with groups or in a formal setting. I learned from my mother, who worked in a clothing factory for years. It made high end wool garments for women. I also had an excellent high school teacher who had been a professional tailor before the school asked her to start a sewing program. Unfortunately, in this country sewing is considered "home economics," and is often cut. There's also the problem of no one to teach the classes. Qualified teachers for fashion design can make more money doing sewing conferences or custom work. We were just lucky that our high school had been without a prrogram, and the teacher who took over wanted to be closer to home and work with high school students.
Some of my students wanted to come back and teach after graduation. I'm sorry, but having four years of school just does not qualify one to be a teacher. It takes way more experience than I could give in four years to prepare a student to teach others.
Teri
Here in the UK they do 'Textiles' as part of Design & Technology... Neither fish not fowl, though possibly foul! ;)
A level (pre-college years, 16-18 or so, years 12 & 13) Textiles seems to consist of a lot of 'design' and cobbling stuff together, and not a lot of actual sewing. When I went to a London School of Fashion First Year exhibition last year, I saw a lot of very imaginative design and some superb ideas, but you could tell which students had the funds to employ a dressmaker to make stuff up and which had to cobble their collection together themselves. Some of the DESIGN was fantastic (impractical, but a lot of fun and very Art School), but the execution let it down badly. As my little sister once said (sewing experience 3 dresses and two pairs of kitchen curtains! ;) ), 'I could do it that well with a stapler!'
I was lucky enough in my earliest years to have a mother who was prepared to show me the basics (she would descrbe herself as a competent basic home dressmaker), and, later, an excellent and inspiring teacher who tought me what I wanted to know when I needed it rather than making me wait for some syllabus schedule imposed from elsewhere. In that school they eschewed the normal school CSE sewing syllabus in the final years (in that school and those days, the fourth & fifth years: what we now call years 10 & 11) and did the City & Guilds course. It involves quite a lot of actual sewing, and is still a good basic grounding in sewing & fitting techniques. I missed out on this by going to a different school that was better for me accademically, but as far as 'needlework' was concernec, by that time (aged almost 15) I alrady knew more than the teacher...
It does very well as far as subject knowledge goes in English Lit, but even there there is ALWAYS something new, different and interesting to learn. Even after the many years of teaching and the MA in modern lit, there's no way I know everything about it. Sewing is just the same, and as with lit, there are areas I love (beaded embroidery a la Kenneth King, bias cutting a la Vionnet, and tailoring a la Saville Row!) and areas I'd be quite happy never to visit again (don't give me alterations! or boring T shirts, unless you have a fitting issue... :D)
I don't teach at the level you did, and I love you being here because I love what you teach us all, but I do say to the kids I teach to sew: Don't *expect* to be able to do it as neatly and as fast as me: I've been at this for over 40 years, and I was MUCH WORSE than you are when I started! Be nice and patient with yourself: slowly, slowly catchee monkey!
It's amazing how fast they pick things up.
Not necessarily. A good many of the folks here are just home sewers who love it and do it for themselves and their families. Some are professionals here and do all sorts of wonderful 'fabric art.' At least to me it's an art what they have achieved with fabric.
Well, that's a given. But I hope people are not that narrow minded to think it will look on them just like it does on the willowy pencil drawn model on the pattern envelope. Of course there's going to be fit issues. Is there ANY pattern made that some adjustment of some sort are not going to have to be made????
The downside of sewing for others. The ones who change a size (or two) between fittings. The ones with completely unrealistic notions of how the final product will look -- and make them look. The ones with no notion of how fabric selections and pattern selections must relate. The ones who think paying for your time and expertise is outrageous.
I want to thank everyone for the answers. I couldn't remember for a couple weeks after posting this thread where I had posted it and was wondering why no one had answered in the email lists I subscribe to. LOL
If I send the girl a link to this thread will it go through if she isn't signed up for the list? thanks, Kitty
You are very welcome.
Might do... Dunno really! She might get it through google groups (hoc! Ptui!), but it's probably easiest to subscripe: free and painless! ;)
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