THE EASY WAY TO LEARN CLOTHES-MAKING

We're always looking for different ways to explain how our clothes-making courses are different, and why our system works so well. And here's an analogy I've just thought of. If you've ever learned a foreign language, you'll understand what I mean.

My first foreign language was English. I attended a school with an extensive focus on English and we had at least one class of it every day. It was all proper: learning sounds and grammar, focusing on spelling and learning pages of text by heart. It was very very academic. I hated every single bit of it. I knew how to speak "correctly", but when I first met native speakers, they thought I was from the Moon. My English was awful. It was very correct but I struggled to express my thoughts and could hardly understand what those Aussies were saying.

And then at uni, I went on to study Spanish. And the first thing the teacher did was she taught us how to say basic stuff like "My name is" and how to order a beer. She started teaching us in full sentences, explaining all the grammar bits and pieces on the way, but focusing on our ability to communicate rather than learning the names of each grammar tense.

When I went to a summer school in Spain, they continued in the same way: they focused on our ability to communicate, not on learning rules by heart. I'm lacking the practice now but I'd be back to speaking Spanish if you threw me into the environment in no time. I understand how the language works, I remember so many words as part of phrases and therefore I can communicate with native speakers.

How To Teach Clothes-Making

And I took the latter approach for my teaching. I don't care about your stitches: are they straight or not, are you using zigzag, overlocker or French seam to connect your details - it's not important. I want you to understand clothes making and start creating clothes right away. You will learn all the details and cool tricks on the way, but if you spend too much time practicing dull straight stitches on the plain piece of fabric, you'll get bored. You'll perfect straight lines but you'll be so tired of it that you might never get to making anything.

When we learn something new and get drowned in theory, most of us get bored. But when you have a physical ready product in your hands, when you see the immediate result. even if it's not perfect yet, you want to keep going, you want to learn more.

Learn To Love Designing Clothes

And I want you to fall in love with designing clothes. I want you to experiment and try something new every time without any fears of things going wrong. There's no wrong in creativity. You can master the perfect stitches along the way. But I'd rather you had slightly imperfect seams and great designs rather than other way around.