Hand Sewing/Industrial Technology

The diagram below is just one examples of the many, many hand sewing illustrations, many full-sized, that are included in Sewing Pants and Skirts. At their highest level, industrial procedures - fashion engineering - enable the production of clothing so beautiful, price becomes no object. Learning industrial methods is the means to producing clothing anyone would love to own. Other important reasons for learning industrial methods are that they give the designer, patternmaker, and seamstress control over their work; reducing time and effort, ensuring the success of their projects.

Fashion design is an engineering discipline. Producing high-end saleable garments requires both good basic engineering skills, and a certain artistic flair. Drafting & Sewing Pants and Skirts and Sewing Pants and Skirts together present how the industry uses disciplined engineering to produce professional garments at a reasonable price within a reasonable time frame. These factors are just as important for the person sewing for her family at home as they are for the professionals. The books emphasize those considerations.

Although some people may think that what the industry produces is down and dirty, the quality of a garment produced in the industry is really governed by its bottom line. The patterns and sample garments, made in the designing department, may go out to the factory perfect. But on the factory floor operators generally work at a fever pitch to earn a living. That speed often results in quality reduction. Even so, industrial procedures at their worse usually produce garments that are saleable, even though those garments were sewn by many hands. There is no home sewing method capable of that achievement. Before criticizing industrial procedures it should be remembered that industrial procedures have enabled mass-production to clothe the masses. That is no small accomplishment.