About the Author
 

Laurel Hoffmann is a production patternmaker who, over the last twenty years has developed and experimented with new ways to scale down and personalize industrial fashion technology to make it easier to learn and so it can be more successfully used in industry, cottage industry and by individuals who sew for themselves and their families in their home. Her first two books: Drafting & Fitting Pants and Skirts, and Sewing Pants and Skirts are now on the market. Coordinator/professor of Philadelphia University’s Industrial Fashion Methods noncredit Continuing Professional Studies’ certificate program, her students include fashion industry personnel, cottage fashion entrepreneurs, professionals in other fields, people who want to either start fashion businesses or enter the industry, and people who would like to sew better for themselves and their families. All are in the same classes, learning from each other, sharing ideas. Over the past twelve years Ms. Hoffmann has developed, written and taught her 6-course program. She is also writing the program’s textbooks, which she and her students are testing in the classroom. Inside Fashion, the international trade paper, advertised her first published book, Slacks that Fit, now titled Drafting & Fitting Pants and Skirts, on their Bookshelf. In 1995 she proposed Sewing Secrets from the Fashion Industry to Rodale Books to which she contributed the blouse chapter. Ms. Hoffmann began her career in custom couture with Philadelphia’s Main Line clientele. She then worked in industrial high-end bridal couture and later sportswear, drafting and grading production patterns and eventually supervising factory production. She is specialized in all phases of industrial manufacturing; including draping and design, cutting and sample making, patternmaking, grading, layouts and factory production. She is experienced in custom color, design and fit, and has had her own cottage industry for many years, first with domestics, now as a desktop publisher.

Laurel with her paternal grandmother, her first sewing teacher. When this picture was taken at Laurel's wedding reception, Laurel was working as a patternmaker, grader trainee, and fit model.

Ms. Hoffmann recognized the need for better fitting and sewing instructions when she retired to raise her children. She realized how difficult it would be for someone who had not worked in the industry to produce professional garments. She began researching to learn more about these problems, asking other women whether they sewed, if not, why? – how they felt about the patterns and information that was available to them. She started a 4-H sewing club for her daughter and two of her daughter’s friends who had just turned nine and ten years old. Although warned that the children would not be able to learn industrial sewing, she taught her club the same scaled down industrial sewing methods she used at home. Her club completed Pennsylvania’s ten Clothing and Textiles levels in three years, normally a 10-year process, winning perfect scores in the senior division on the second half of their projects. When Philadelphia University learned of her club’s success, they asked her to teach in their fashion degree program, which she did for five years. She wrote the textbook for the prerequisite course she was asked to teach; and wrote and developed Couture Techniques, a senior capstone course. She designed sample books for both courses.

The School of Graduate and Continuing Studies then asked if she would teach adult fashion classes. Her pragmatic program includes a business course. The economics of time, materials, and cost are also discussed in each of the other five multi-disciplined fashion studio courses.

Ms. Hoffmann’s intent is to enable her students and the people who buy her books to use the best of industrial technology to design and make beautiful clothes that work for them. She emphasizes that with scaled down industrial technology, a beautiful, custom designed high-end wardrobe can be achieved at minimal expense, with minimal equipment, within a reasonable time frame.

Professor Laurel Hoffmann worked in the industry as a production patternmaker/technical designer after working in high-end custom. She wrote the Industrial Fashion Methods Continuing Professional Education Certificate Program that she teaches at Philadelphia University, and is writing and testing its textbooks in that program. The books' material is determined by her students' needs and by what she needed to know when she ran factories in the industry. She has adapted that information, where necessary, so it can be used with minimal equipment. Her students include design personnel from the industry.

Laurel began her career in custom design in a small shop with Philadelphia's Main Line clientele. She then worked in industrial high-end bridal and later sportswear, drafting and grading production patterns and eventually supervising factory production. She is specialized in all phases of industrial manufacturing; including draping and design, cutting and sample making, patternmaking, grading, layouts, and factory production. She is experienced in custom color, design, and fit, and has had her own cottage industry for many years, first with custom clothing, then domestics, now as an author and publisher. She is also a former 4-H Leader and Master Leader. Their national web site is www.4husa.org.

The PA 4-H website is http://pa4h.cas.psu.edu

USA $90.00 per book, plus $6.00 shipping and handling.  Order the Book.

More about Laurel Hoffmann:

Writer
Companion books, Drafting & Fitting Pants and Skirts and Sewing Pants and Skirts went on the market in the spring of 2004. Inside Fashion, the international trade paper published in Hong Kong, selected them for sale on their virtual Bookshelf.

Ms. Hoffmann is currently writing and testing the pattern making and sewing textbooks for/in the Continuing Professional Education Industrial Fashion Methods certificate program, which she wrote and teaches at Philadelphia University. She also wrote various articles for the Professional Association of Custom Clothiers’ PACCNews and the American Sewing Guild’s Notions newsletters.

She wrote the blouse chapter for SEWING SECRETS FROM THE FASHION INDUSTRY, published by Rodale Press, 1996; gave sewing suggestions for SEWING TIPS FROM THE FASHION INDUSTRY, published by Rodale Press.

She also wrote the required textbook, BASIC SAMPLE MAKING PROCEDURES Used in the Fashion Industry, for degree fashion program at Philadelphia University, 1991. Textbook addresses industrial, cottage industry, classroom, and personal sewing technology needs.

Videos
PILLOW MAKING is the pilot film produced for and sold to students, cottage industry, and home markets.

College Fashion Professor
Now developing and teaching Continuing Professional Education Industrial Fashion Methods certificate program designed for cottage industry. Students learn all aspects of industrial designing, patternmaking and sewing including custom fitting, tailoring, utilizing home sewing patterns as slopers and related skills.

Testing new industrial custom fit and grading procedures in the classroom.
Previously developed and taught Philadelphia University fashion degree program’s prerequisite fashion design Garment Structures course; wrote and taught senior industrial Couture Techniques fashion degree sample making course. Designed and developed the textbook for prerequisite fashion degree course, sample books for both courses, skirt and shirt patterns for prerequisite sample making fashion degree course.

Industrial Production Patternmaker/Technical Designer
Experienced in all aspects of clothing manufacture: sportswear production patternmaker/factory supervisor, grader, fit model, assistant designer of couture wedding gowns, custom couture designer, sample making – cutting and sewing - and sample sales. Bruce Nussbaum, Inc.; Lynne Carol, Inc., Philadelphia, Pa.; Janed, Inc. (Corner House) Quakertown, Pa.; Alfred Angelo, Inc., Willow Grove, Pa.; Joie De Vivre, Haverford, Pa.

Cottage Industry Entrepreneur
Home based publishing business.
In the past manufactured pillows, other home furnishings; needlepoint finishing, custom clothing.

Current Work History
Publisher, author, artist of pant books currently on the market
Coordinator/Instructor at Philadelphia University

Affliations

[top]