Dressmaking In London

Being able to make your own clothes is one of the joys sewing, and doesn't need to be an impossible task. Join us in our Brick Lane studio and learn how to make a simple, pretty dress, that you can make again and again in almost any fabric.

 

Our make a simple dress courses are for those with basic sewing skills or those who have completed our sewing classes. 

  In this class you will learn how to use a commercial pattern, lay, mark and pin pattern to fabric and cut out. 

 
You will sew seams, make tucks, attach pockets and a facing, make and set in sleeves, hem, press and finish your dress ready to wear. We provide a commerical pattern for you to work from and all other materials, you just need to bring fabric. 

As with all our courses, the class will be run from our Birck Lane studio, in small classes of no more than 8.

 
£95.00
Includes Materials

DAYTIME

Monday 11^th March

Friday  12^th April

Price £95 Includes some materials

WEEKEND

Sunday 10^th February  

Saturday 30^th March    

Saturday 27^th April       

Sunday 19^th May

Sunday 23^rd June

Time: 10:00 - 16:30
Duration Details: 1 day
Trainer: Karine Bono

For further information please see the Fashion Antidote Website here, pop into our studio, or email us, or call on 02073753235.

OPPORTUNITES: Great tips from a great stylist

One for all you budding stylists and designers out there: Helpful tips and tricks from Stylist Aimee Croysdill and Alison Lowe from Felicities PR

Roses Gabor - styled by Aimee Croysdill

These are Aimees tips:

• Don’t underestimate the usefulness of placing your outfits on a lesser-known singer. One: they may make it big, and when they’re on tv every week, they’ll be wearing your brand. Two: Even if they don’t smash it, music video shoots attract PR people & stylists like wasps to a lollypop. You want those guys looking at your clothes!

• When you give your garments to a celebrity stylist for a shoot, you have to let go a little. A dress may come back with a broken zip, buttons may be looser than you remember... but you’ll get massive press. 

• If your clothes aren’t credited in a shoot, don’t get annoyed. Sometimes not every brand gets listed. You can still use the shoot to your advantage - mention it to PR people, put it on your website.

• In the words of Alison Lowe, ‘Twitter and Pinterest are the biggest things to hit fashion in... forever!’ - so get on them! Use Twitter to get in touch with sylists & PRs, and create pinterest boards that showcase your wares & display your brand’s personality. 

• If you want to attract the attention of a PR agency or a Stylist, maybe step away from the ‘press release’ email. Top PRs receive thousands of emails every day, so your mail may well get lost in the funk. Solution? Tweet them! Engaging over Twitter allows you to build a relationship with a stylist or PR.

• Who do you tweet? Look at the masthead of a fashion mag, find out who edits each section - tweet them! Look at a really nice fashion shoot, find out who did the styling - tweet them!

• If you’re emailing a stylist, keep your messages short. These people are so busy, so they don’t want your verbage. Get straight to the point. 

• Don’t tell them your life story. Similar to the point above, if you’re chatting to a stylist or PR via email, don’t give them your brand’s mission statement. However gallant and noble, they’re more bothered about what they garments look like. If you simply ‘must’ tell them what your brand is all about, keep it to one sentence.

• Only use great quality images. If you give a PR person a bad quality image, they’ll probably bin it, and bin you. Let them see how great your clothes are! 

• If you’re going to a Fashion event - especially business advice nights! - bring your lookbook with you. You never know who will be there to take a look. 

• The final tip from Aimee Croysdill: use good quality zips. Top celebs are less likely to break a good quality zip.

We saw this on Club Workspace, check them out here.

Great reviews of our Fashion Design Course (design a collection for a target customer)

A great review of our Fashion Design Course from past student, Heidi Anne Grant  

"Attended the last 'design a collection for a target customer', really impressed, lots of help to bring out the best in your creativity.
If you want to learn anything about Fashion this is the place to come!"

Fashion Design: Design a Collection for a Target Customer

The course will give you a taste of the fashion design process. Learn to design for a target customer, with the course covering sources of inspiration, trend and fabric research, mood boards, targeting customers, sketching and drawing, designing, range planning and design solutions.

Course Breakdown:

Intro to Fashion Industry

Levels of the market. The fashion calendar. The seasons. Fashion prediction and trend information, colour and fabric trends and predictions.
Fabric and trimming suppliers. Sampling and Manufacturing methods.

Intro to the Fashion Design Process

Design Research, sources of inspiration, themes and stories. Visual research - books, magazines, internet, and galleries etc. Sketching and drawing, note taking and collating. Mood boards and Theme boards. Create a customer profile. Identify the level of the market and stockists.

Sketching, Design Drawing, Specification Drawing

Observational Drawing, Analytical Drawing. Reference sketches. Figure drawing Specification or technical drawing. Getting your ideas on paper. Even if you are not good at drawing the techniques taught will enable you to achieve professional result

Design development / Range Planning

Work with all research, drawings and design roughs to develop a range of fashion garments aimed at a target market, Choose a colour palette and make fabric suggestions. Consider branding and visual identity.

Line up and Specification Drawing

Create a range plan and design line up with specification drawings for a fashion collection along with a colour palette and fabric research.
Create Specification Drawings for all garments showing front and back views.

Finalisation and Presentation

Finish all work and present to the group.

For more information see the website here, call on 02073753235 or email info@fashionantidote.com

Loving East London

This shop front illustration has recently popped up right around the corner from us - we saw the process of the painting going up last week and the finished product is so striking. Never a dull minute in our creative corner of London.

We like to make the most of being based in such a creatively rich area, by integrating tours and trips around the local markets, studios, shops boutiques and exhibitions in with our regular short courses.

We call these our Fashion Days Out, and they are exactly that, a chance to get out about in London visiting the most amazing and inspiring fashion destinations. Based on either Vintage fashion or InsideLondon fashion and culture, our Fashion Days Out make the most of our wonderful city and combine lectures, talks and sewing skills with guided tours and visits (and a fair bit of shopping)

Have a peek at the site for more about these fabulous weekends and for details on how to book.

Special event coming up?

We can also tailor days or weekends to you – if you’d like to organise a Fashion Day Out with a group for a special event, birthday, anniversary, celebration or part of a holiday – we can tailor a package to your interests and find a date to suit you. We just need confirmation of a group size of at least 8. Call for more details on 02073753235 or email info@fashonantidote.com

Featured Class Fashion Drawing and Design - Design a Collection for a Target Customer

 

Today is the 3^rd installment of our design class, focusing on designing for a target customer. Ade, Heidi, Maureen, and Kelly have been developing their drawing styles and skills for the last 3 weeks and are coming on a treat.

So far they have researched surrounding a theme, created moodboards, researched and identified their customer profile. Today they are developing their ideas and embarking upon the first steps specification drawing.

It’s great to have such a varied class, with inspirations from Egyptians to suits and workwear, and target markets such as the taller women and niche formal childrenswear.

In the next couple of weeks the students will learn all about specification drawing, line up and range planning and will finish designing their collection. Keep an eye out for their finished designs!

If you’d like to join this course and learn all about designing for industry, the next daytime class starts Thursday 5th April and runs until 3rd May, and also runs On Thursday Evenings, starting Thursday 19th April until 31st May. See our website here for more details and to book your place.

Fashion Design for the Catwalk - with Alternative Fashion Week