Your sewing skills - make the most of them.
They will ask you what you can do. A tricky question. You don’t want to say: 'Nothing too difficult!' as you might be pegged as useless before you’ve had a chance to shine. However, do not say: ‘Oh, anything!’ because this is a professional studio, and 'anything' means something here. Some machinists really can sew anything. They are the experts, the highly experienced, the well trained, who are given the trickiest, most skilled jobs. If you say you can sew anything, you might be given something very difficult indeed – or worse, something difficult and expensive, that you can easily ruin and cost the company. Most machinists don’t sew “anything”. They have general skills of course, but usually they tend to stick to a specific area of expertise. As a beginner, you don’t have an area of expertise, but imagine you did. What do you have the most experience sewing? If you were going to choose an area to become an expert in, what would it be? Are you good with stretch knit? Can you handle delicate chiffons or tulle quite well? Do you feel safer with woven fabrics? Do you enjoy making outerwear or corsetry? Decide before you even arrive what your strengths are and what you feel happiest doing. Then, when you get asked: 'What can you do?', you will be able to say something more useful than: 'Something easy please!'
Fashion studios have rules
Find out the house rules. After you have been given your assignment and the studio manager has bustled off again, before you even pick up your fabric, turn to the machinist next to you and, very nicely, ask her some questions. Every sample room has certain rules or preferences for working, which produce the quality standard for that fashion company’s output. Perhaps, fabric is never pressed on the right side. Perhaps, fabric must be pressed before stitching. Perhaps no steaming is allowed. Perhaps French seams must be a certain width. Perhaps, only the Bernina fine-stitching sewing machine is used to finish certain fabrics. You must know these things before you start, and they can be tricky to find out. Everyone is busy. Maybe only the other machinists know them. Start talking and make some friends fast – you will need help.
Follow your sewing pattern directions
Follow the markings and directions on the pattern pieces to the letter. Even the teeniest details are very important to the designer. If the positioning of something looks wonky to you, never mind, sew it where its put. Maybe the designer wants it wonky. If they come to you afterwards complaining, you can point to the pattern and say you followed it exactly. If it really looks dodgy, try and grab the pattern cutter to ask them about it, but that might be difficult – they are often in another room or running madly around, and you might not even know who cut your pattern. Try asking the sample cutter if they know who cut it, and try asking the other sample machinists if they have worked on this garment, if they know if it's supposed to look like this. You can spend a pretty exciting and bewildering half hour trying to get answers to a fairly simple question in a busy studio. It's best to use common sense as far as possible, stick to the pattern directions like glue however mad they seem, and keep your stitching neat.
Sample machinists need friends
Find out who the sample cutter is and compliment their outfit, fetch them a coffee and tell them you love their favourite band. The sample cutter is the person who cuts all the pattern pieces out in fabric. Every piece of fabric you will sew has to be cut by them. If you screw up and need a replacement piece of fabric cut, even if its just an extra inch of binding, you will be at their mercy. If they like you they will cut it for you straight away, if not, you might be waiting two hours for them to finish their other jobs or they might rat you out to the designer and your stock will go downhill fast. Even if you never make a mistake, you will need to know them and be on their good side, because you always need a bit of extra something or other cutting out. Being friends with the person with the scissors will make your life a lot easier.
Sewing equipment = important
There is no shame in bringing a few of your own bits and pieces with you – a stitch picker maybe, your favourite hand sewing needle, and some good scissors. No matter how prestigious the company, the sewing equipment is always so well used that it's impossible to keep all the scissor blades sharp, and you will probably work fastest with your own things. Just be careful they don’t get mixed in with the rest at the end of the day, and take care with the communal equipment that is there. And, don’t bring pins. There’re always plenty of pins.
Natalie Gowans - Natalie Gowans used to work in Fashion Design. It didn't really work out, but it was pretty interesting and she found out a lot of things ...
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