Why you should be a dressmaker... or at least, make/change some stuff... (To be followed by Why you should NOT be a dressmaker)

Repost: originally written 10/14/15

Previous (related) post: Why you should NOT create/design your own projects

Yes, you should be a dressmaker/custom sewing professional.  Or maybe not. Seriously. Are you considering it?

Here are some things I've made and redesigned over the years...

A grand entrance

The skirt zips off for the reception dance!

A mother's wedding gown combined with a Sri Lankan sari to make an American/Sri Lankan love story.

Bought at auction, 1890's dress made fun for the bride!

A winter reception dress for a classy bride

Tidy work pants for a minus-size client.

A Valentine's day duvet and pillow set...

Well, for one thing... there is a frightening shortage of creativity and fun in the affordable ready-to-wear and other markets, and far less variety when it comes to costumes, home dec, outerwear, and party-wear.

So why should you do this kind of work?

"You'll be able to earn money."

I may be lying a bit here.  You probably won't earn much, and your income will be BOTH unreliable and unpredictable (fun!), but you can create lots of great things for people who need/want them, and you can be paid for doing it.  How will they find you?  You can list yourself on a site like mine, or on a free site, like Mood, or post ads in your local area for your target market.

"You'll be able to stretch creatively."

You can expand beyond the ready-to-wear items offered in stores, within the limits of your skill level. Bias, cross, or straight grain?  Your choice.  Your design! Your colors! Any size! Will you fail?  Will things go wrong?  Yes!  (Unfortunately.)  But things will also go beautifully at other times.  If it doesn't, you'll know when to stop, for sure.

"You'll have complete control."

Ha!  No you won't.  The client tells you what she/he likes.  But you can get as creative as the client will allow, and it is a fabulous feeling to truly please someone with something fantastic!  It is always at least a bit of a gamble, but if you can keep an eye on quality, technique and execution, you really stand a chance of doing some great work.

"You can think outside of the box."

This is the greatest part of all.  Some of the most fun I've had has been doing things like making convertible wedding dresses (zipping off lower tiers of a skirt for dancing, combining cultures), making clothing suitable for physical challenges and disabilities, answering all kinds of unusual requests - it really can be a joyful experience, should you choose to give it a whirl!

Next post on related topics:  Why you should NOT be a dressmaker (will be posted in the near future)

Zeno's Paradox... "You can't get there from here"

 When I create something, I often feel as if I am creating for a moving target.  Whether making something for me personally or for someone else, sometimes it feels as if the goal steadily moves away from me, as I complete a seemingly infinite series of  small steps toward completion.  Having overcome my creative block... (Hooray! I am even afraid to say it aloud, for fear it will return!), I have been steadily been working toward the completion of three major garments promised to others, with a pile of personal projects that truly excite me on the horizon immediately behind them.

As I create, the wearer (whether me or someone else) gains or loses weight, gains or loses confidence about wearing it, the timeframe, personal design choices, or ruminates on the color of the fabric or trims, while the weather changes, and the general fashion mosaic continues to change around us... And I pursue new additional things, have new challenges, gain and lose mojo, and so on. This is always true, but I have discovered that the quick, decisive, SCHEDULED completion of a project is the only answer to this problem.  

For me, that is the eternal challenge. I have periods of outrageously productive creation (usually in the Fall), and what I find is that most of the things I eventually create lived in my head for a long time before they finally became real.

About 2500 years ago, Zeno, an ancient Greek philosopher, offered a series of interesting mind puzzles, known as paradoxes. I am particularly intrigued by Zeno's paradox of the tortoise and Achilles.

If you have never heard it, the paradox is basically described this way:

Achilles, the fleet-footed hero of the Trojan War, is engaged in a race with a lowly tortoise, which has been granted a head start. Achilles’ task initially seems easy, but he has a problem. Before he can overtake the tortoise, he must first catch up with it. While Achilles is covering the gap between himself and the tortoise that existed at the start of the race, however, the tortoise creates a new gap. The new gap is smaller than the first, but it is still a finite distance that Achilles must cover to catch up with the animal. Achilles then races across the new gap. To Achilles’ frustration, while he was scampering across the second gap, the tortoise was establishing a third. The upshot is that Achilles can never overtake the tortoise. No matter how quickly Achilles closes each gap, the slow-but-steady tortoise will always open new, smaller ones and remain just ahead of the Greek hero.

Achilles concedes the race, deciding that the tortoise was correct.  But is he?  Of course not.  Life has taught us differently.  If I can work quickly enough, I will eventually catch up - unless I stop, right?

The paradox breaks the race down into infinitely small steps - so many, in fact, that the series of tiny steps in infinite, and there is no FINAL step.  

So, the thought this leads me to is this:  Is there actually a "there"? If so, where is it? Does it need redefining?

Let's say you are making a pair of pants, a shirt, building a design career, launching a product... Do you have an actual goal in mind? If we make our goal to simply overtake the tortoise, with no actual finish line, are we missing the point? Should we redefine the goal?  Is there a level of completion that is actually "complete"?  I looked for evidence online that creative people were finding Zeno's paradox relevant to their own creative lives, and there are others who have written quite beautifully on this topic.  Among knitters, it can be called the "second sock" syndrome.  Among painters, the infinite  combination of colors, brush strokes, ways to convey the work are endless, and that is what confounds us.  Isn't it?

I made a particular convertible wedding dress (one of many I have converted in this way) for one particular client some tears ago.  This idea turns one dress into two, for the bride who wants to "let loose" at the reception without changing dresses.  She was a creative - an actress and dancer, with whom I had an excellent rapport.  During our process, however, we made what seemed like an impossibly long series of tiny incremental changes to the separating zipper I'd installed, the tulle and lining of the short version of her dress... until the deadline (wedding date) loomed ominously. Caught in a spiral of infinite creativity, we were eventually forced to stop, due to the timeframe.  Clearly, we all (creatives) need a bit of that in our lives.

Bride immediately following ceremony (before)

Let the dancing begin! (After)

Strangely enough, that is the beauty of business.  Business puts a definite period on things.  It makes us stop at some point to meet a goal. If we don't, the business will meet its own demise.  Plenty of them do. Happily, business deadlines serve as great practice for actually getting things done.

The next store-bought dress I converted, was significantly easier.  One fitting, and I was DONE. 

After

Before

As an aside, this is an alteration/redesign I love to do, because it is really such a "costuming" decision, it fuels conversation, and it amazes the guests!

Business, has for me, been a significant boost to my productivity, because it puts a period at the end of every garment... whether I like it or not!

Related posts:

Are you starting a fashion business? What is stopping you? Let's poke where you're tender...

The challenges and joys of design thinking

Overcoming a creative block


Hope this is helpful! Please comment if it is!