EMAIL BILL - [email protected]
  • About Us
    • Bill
    • Emile
  • Join Us
    • Blog
  • Contact
  • Startup Costs
    • Production Prices
    • Tech Pack Prices
    • Pattern Cutting Prices

The London Pattern Cutter

  • HOME
  • LEARNING
    • How To Workshops
      • Start A Clothing Line
      • Start A Childrens Brand
      • Start A T Shirt Brand
      • Start A Sustainable Brand
      • Start A Streetwear Brand
      • Start An Equestrian Brand
      • Start A Denim Brand
      • Start A Lingerie Brand
      • Start A Sportswear Brand
      • Start A Swimwear Brand
      • Start Online Fashion Brand
      • Create A Tech Pack
      • Cost A Garment
      • Measure A Garment
      • Write A Business Plan
      • Be A Fashion Designer
    • Pattern Cutting
      • Online Pattern Cutting
      • Computer Pattern Cutting Tuition
      • One-To-One Pattern Cutting
        • Draping
        • Sportswear Pattern Cutting Class
        • Swimwear Pattern Cutting Classes
        • Lingerie Pattern Cutting Class
      • Pattern Grading Class
        • Childrenswear Grading
      • Quality Control
      • Swimwear Design Class
      • Sewing Class Walthamstow
      • Our Fashion Workshops
    • Start-ups
      • Brand Identity Workshop
      • Fashion Business Advice
      • Fashion Startup Consultant
  • PRODUCTION
    • Full Package Production
    • Overseas Production
    • Scotland
    • Small Production Runs
    • UK Clothing Manufacture.
    • Garment Technician
  • SAMPLING
    • Samples
    • Sampling Studio Hire
    • Tech Packs
    • Activewear Garment Development
    • Hiring A Freelance Sample Machinist
  • X
    • Lingerie Sampling.
    • Childrenswear
    • Ladieswear
    • Menswear Manufacture
      • Mens Capes & Cloaks
      • Mens Swimwear
      • Stretch Underwear
      • Vintage
      • Tailoring
      • Streetwear
      • Polo Shirt
      • Corporate Wear
      • Mens Trouser Patterns
      • Mens Waistcosts
    • Sportswear
      • Rowing
      • Skiwear
      • Swimwear Manufacture
      • Swimwear Fabric Sourcing
      • Swimwear Startup Costs
      • Cycling
      • Custom Sports Kit
      • Equestrian Wear.
      • Technical Clothing
    • Grading
      • Childrenswear Grading
    • Miscellaneous
      • The Critical Path
      • Fabric Sourcing
      • Hats
      • Mens Bespoke
      • CONSULTANCY
        • Fashion Startup Consultant
        • Fashion Design Consultant
        • Fashion Business Advice
  • PATTERNS
    • Mans Shirt Draft
    • Pattern Cutting Theory
      • Tailored Sleeve Draft
    • T Shirt Patterns
    • Hire A Pattern Cutter
    • Pattern Cutting
  • £
    • Tech Pack Prices
    • Production Prices
    • Pattern Cutting Prices
    • Sample Machinist Prices
    • Product Development Prices

Freelance Pattern Cutter London

Freelance Pattern Cutting In London.

14). Finding and hiring  the best freelance pattern cutters in London is no easy task. There are an abundance of freelancers throughout London, but not all pattern cutters are the same.

There is no point in employing a swimwear pattern cutter if you want a tailored jacket pattern. Or using a childrenswear pattern cutter for menswear. Most pattern makers are skilled within a narrow range of genres, but can be totally lost when they are working outside their field of expertise.

 

The Right Pattern Cutter For You.

The importance of employing the right freelance pattern cutter for you or your brand cant be emphasised enough. They need to be have sufficient experience in the right product fields.

They also need to be able to offer you a range of services to enable you to take your designs to the next stage. The best freelance pattern cutters will be able to provide their clients with a whole range of services.

A good pattern cutter needs to communicate with the designer, the sample machinist and the factory.

 

Experience Counts.

The most important factor in choosing a pattern cutter is experience. It takes at least ten years to become a competent pattern maker. Having to work as a freelancer ensures that you encounter a very wide range of projects, with all types of garments. An experienced freelance pattern cutter should be able to tackle just about anything.

 

 Our Team.

We have a small team of very experienced specialist and multi-product freelance pattern cutters in London. While each  specialises in particular garment types, they are also able to deal confidently with multiple products.

 

Leading Fashion Centre.

London has long been a world  leading centre for fashion, with its fashion industry employing around 50,000 people. It accounts for around half of all UK jobs related to fashion design and garment development.

Fashion businesses used to be concentrated  mainly in either the West End, North of Oxford Street or the East End, round Brick Lane.  North London  had a thriving  fashion industry, while South London had very little.

 

Fashion Businesses Around London.

As a Freelance Pattern Cutter today,  work is spread much more widely around different areas of London. Many new fashion businesses and young Designers are located around Camden, Shoreditch, Hammersmith, Fulham, Tottenham and Brixton.

London Pattern Cutter

The Internet.

The other great advancement  has been the advent of the Internet, which has made it far easier to market  freelance services. Ten years ago the only way  to market as a freelance pattern cutter, apart from sending hundreds of letters or making hundreds of phone calls was to advertise in Drapers Record at significant cost and with little response.

Today 70% of our work is located  London based, while Scotland accounts for 10% and the rest of the UK accounts for the remaining 20%.

 

 EMAIL   [email protected]

 

 

Pattern Cutting On The Stand.

Although I spent four years at college studying to be a Pattern Cutter, learning only really began when I started work as a Pattern Maker for Jaeger in 1975 – and had to work with patterns constantly.

Even then I feel that my progress in learning the job was considerably slowed because I was initially working solely “on the flat” rather than “on the stand”.

That is, I was working with a pattern on the table, according to instructions and theory rather than putting the shape on a mannequin and seeing what was really happening.

 

Pattern Cutting Experience.

When I started it was  easy to get a job as a paid Pattern Maker straight out of college. Today  there is a glut of graduates who do not have the skills or experience  that employers require.

The lucky graduates get to work as Internees with little or no pay and often long hours in order to gain the experience.

Pattern making skills cannot be picked up quickly, but takes  years of experience. The best way of acquiring the skills is to learn how to model on the stand in combination with working on the flat.

 

Pattern Cutting Skills.

Pattern cutting is a skill that requires many years of practise to achieve even a basic level of competence. Ten years experience is the very minimum required before you begin to be competent.  Once you have  the basic skills, then it becomes easier to pick up new related skills.

While some people may have an innate talent, pattern cutting is not an artistic skill like designing, where talent  can transcend experience to a large extent.

Pattern cutting requires an eye for detail as well as patience to make sure that all the pieces fit together correctly. Today I can provide patterns for any type of style, from swimwear and lingerie through to complicated tailored jackets and dresses.

 

Types Of Pattern Cutters.

There are two basic types of clothing pattern makers in the UK – Those that are more artistic  with flare, but little patience for precision. And those that are very precise and almost architectural in their creation of a pattern.

The latter  veer towards the tailoring end of pattern cutting. The former tend to be involved in more flamboyant, drapy styles. The flare Pattern Cutter is more likely to work in ladies wear while the architectural Pattern Cutter is more likely to work in menswear or tailoring.

 

Flat Pattern Cutting.

There are two distinct ways of creating a pattern, as well as variations in between. Some Pattern Cutters will draft their patterns on the flat, while others will model them on the stand.

The architectural Pattern Cutter is more likely to draft a pattern, while the flare Pattern Cutter will tend to model on the stand.

I tend to combine the two methods, although I think that modelling on the stand is essential in learning to understand how pattern cutting works and how the shape of the body influences the fit and hang of the garment.

Tailors nearly always use drafts to Create  a pattern, but while an experienced Tailor will know how to ignore the rules of drafting, an inexperienced Tailor will often not understand how a pattern work in relation to the body. He will often be too concerned about the drafting method itself which can be very  unintuitive.

 

Modelling On The Stand.

All Pattern Cutters should learn how to model on the stand rather than from a draft or an existing shape that is created on the flat, even if their initial patterns are poor as a result.

Obviously in a work situation you don’t have the luxury of experimentation in this way, so a combination of methods would probably work best.

When you work on the flat you are only guessing that what you are doing is correct. You are working on theory rather than reality. You may of course be very good at that, but it will never take over from the reality of seeing something on a mannequin or a body.

 

Pattern Cutting Courses.

We run a number of short pattern cutting classes form our London studios in Greenwich, for anyone interested in learning about how to make patterns.

 

The Best Freelancers.

It cant stress enough how important good professional patterns are. Some factories do supply patterns, but normally these are not made by experienced professional pattern cutters. And almost certainly they wont be experienced in the area of pattern cutting that you require.

We always use very experienced pattern cutters, highly skilled in their specific fields. Again, this is very important. It can cost you a lot of money if the patterns are not right, as you may end up paying for multiple samples. And if the shape is poor you will sell fewer garments and get many more returns.

We do offer pattern cutting workshops, but these have to be at least four hours long. As a start-up workshop I would suggest that they are used to create your specific design rather than as a general pattern cutting class.

If you use the workshop to create a pattern for your own design, you are able to have more input into shaping that design. The pattern cutter can create the patterns alongside you.

 

What is A Creative  Pattern Cutter ?

Many people would consider a  creative pattern cutter to be a more creative version of a general pattern cutter.

In this interpretation, a pattern cutter who works by draping  on the stand would be considered to be more creative pattern cutter than one who works primarily on a computer.

Although the computer pattern cutter also creates a pattern, they are not considered to work in as creative a way as the “toilist”, or the flat pattern cutter.

The flat pattern cutter on the other hand could be considered more creative than the computer pattern cutter, because they work manually rather than on a computer screen.

But in reality the term creative pattern cutter is used to distinguish between two different roles – The production pattern cutter and the creative pattern cutter.

The creative pattern cutter would create the initial pattern, working with the designer and the sample machinist. The production pattern cutter would then do any subsequent amendments and perfect the pattern to be factory ready.

In the past, these two roles would have been done by one person, while the factory pattern cutter may have adjusted the supplied pattern  to make it easier for the factory, or to suit their machinery or construction methods.

 

Creative Vs Production  Pattern Cutter.

As someone who has been both a freelance creative pattern cutter and a production pattern cutter for  over forty years, I find this division of roles completely unsatisfactory.

As a creative pattern cutter, the link can be lost from the first pattern to the final sample, because you are not kept informed of any alterations. So you could be making the same errors over and over again.

As a production pattern cutter you lose the creative side of the work as you only get to adjust other peoples patterns.

Most small fashion companies or designers would only employ one pattern cutter. Two pattern cutters with different roles would superfluous. And freelance pattern cutters tend to have multiple roles anyway.

Anyone considering employing a freelance pattern cutter would need to hire someone experienced  in both the creative side and the production side of pattern cutting. It is no good being able to create marvellous shapes if you do not know how to construct a lining pattern correctly.

 

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value”   ALBERT EINSTEIN

 

 EMAIL   [email protected]

 

 

Pages

  • About Us
    • Emile
  • Adobe Illustrator Class
  • Beginner Sewing Lessons Essex
  • Bespoke Mens Shirts
  • Best Pattern Cutting Tools
  • Bill
  • Blog
  • Bra Fitting Service
  • Bra Making Course
  • Bra Pattern Cutting Class.
  • Brother VR Embroidery Machine
  • Childrenswear
    • Childrenswear Pattern Cutter
  • Childrenswear Garment Technologist
  • Contact
  • Corporate Uniform Design.
  • Couture Dressmaker
  • Custom Made Lingerie
  • Designer Dressmaker
  • Equestrian Wear Startup Costs
  • Fashion Design Consultant
    • Fashion Illustration Service
    • Freelance Fashion Designer
    • How To Become A Fashion Designer
  • Fashion Photography Rates
  • Fashion Product Pricing
  • Fashion Startups Business Services
    • Activewear Garment Development
    • Brand Identity Workshop
    • Fashion Business Advice
    • Fashion Startup Consultant
    • How To Patent Your Clothing Design
    • Marketing
    • Start A Clothing Line
    • Start A Denim Brand
  • Flatlock Sewing Machine
  • Freelance Fashion Photographer
  • Freelance Pattern Cutter
  • Freelance Pattern Cutter Jobs
  • Freelance Pattern Cutter London
    • Hire A Pattern Cutter
    • How To Become A Freelance Pattern Cutter
    • Pattern Digitising Service
  • Freelance Sample Machinist Jobs
  • Golf Clothing Manufacture
  • High End Manufacture
  • Hire Reece 101 Buttonholer
  • Home
  • Hoodie Tech Pack
  • How Much Does Digitising Cost ?
  • How To Design Lingerie
  • How To Make A Pattern From Your Clothes
  • How To Make A Trouser Block
  • How To Sew A Perfect Corner
  • How To Use A Domestic Sewing Machine
  • How To Use The Reece 101 Buttonholer
  • Industrial Sewing Machine Course
  • Join Us
  • Knitwear Design
  • Lingerie Production
  • Lingerie Tech Pack
  • London Fashion Courses
    • Business Plan Workshop
    • Childrenswear Grading Course
    • Computer Pattern Cutting Tuition
    • Costings Workshop
    • Draping
    • Fashion Design
    • Golf Clothing Brand
    • How To Start A Sportswear Brand
    • Lingerie Pattern Cutting Class
    • Mens Underwear Pattern Cutting Tuition
    • One-To-One Pattern Cutting
    • Online Pattern Cutting
    • Our Fashion Workshops
    • Pattern Grading Class
    • Quality Control
    • Sewing Class Walthamstow
    • Sportswear Pattern Cutting Class
    • Start A Creative Business
    • Start A Lingerie Brand
    • Start A Sustainable Brand
    • Start A Swimwear Brand
    • Start A T Shirt Brand
    • Start Online Fashion Brand
    • Swimwear Design Class
    • Swimwear Pattern Cutting Classes
    • Tailored Jacket
  • Mans Tailored Jacket Draft
  • Menswear Designer
  • Menswear Manufacture
    • Corporate Wear
    • Mans Shirt Draft
    • Mens Capes & Cloaks
    • Mens Swimwear
    • Mens Trouser Patterns
    • Mens Waistcosts
    • Menswear Pattern Cutter
    • Neckwear
    • Polo Shirt
    • Shirt Manufacture
    • Streetwear
    • Stretch Underwear
      • Classic Boxer Shorts
    • Tailoring
    • Vintage
  • Menswear Samples
  • Mentoring
  • Micro Clothing Factory
  • MISC
    • Custom Embroidery Service
    • Dressmakers Dummies
    • Fabric Sourcing
    • Hats
    • Mens Bespoke
    • Non-Disclosure Agreement
    • Pattern Paper And Card
    • Private Label Vs White Label
    • Sampling Studio Hire
    • Start A Childrens Brand
    • T Shirt Patterns
    • The Critical Path
  • Online Digital Pattern Cutting Course
  • Online Pattern Grading Class
  • Online Sewing Course
  • Online Video Course
  • Pattern Cutting Classes In Kent
  • Pattern Cutting Lessons Scotland
  • Pattern Cutting Tuition Walthamstow
  • Pattern Grading
    • Childrenswear Grading
    • Size Charts
  • PRODUCTION
    • Full Package Production
    • Garment Technician
    • Measure A Garment
    • Overseas Production
    • Production Prices
    • Scotland
    • Small Production Runs
    • UK Clothing Manufacture.
  • Samples
    • Hiring A Freelance Sample Machinist
    • Lingerie Sampling.
    • Product Development Prices
    • Sampling Prices
  • Scotland Pattern Cutter
  • Sewing Class South London
  • Sportswear Manufacture
    • Custom Gymwear
    • Custom Sports Kit
    • Cycling
    • Equestrian Wear.
    • Freelance Sportswear Pattern Cutter
    • Neoprene Sportswear
    • Rowing
    • Skiwear
    • Swimwear Fabric Sourcing
    • Swimwear Manufacture
      • Swimwear Pattern Cutter
      • Swimwear Samples
    • Swimwear Startup Costs
    • Technical Clothing
  • Sportswear Manufacture Nottingham
  • Sportswear Tech Pack Design Service
  • Start A Sportswear Brand In Scotland
  • Start An Equestrian Brand
  • Startup Costs
    • Pattern Cutting Prices
    • Prices FAQ
  • Streetwear Tech Pack
  • Stuffed Toy Making Class
  • Swimwear Manufacture Nottingham
  • Swimwear Tech Pack
  • Tailored Collar Draft
  • Tailored Sleeve Draft
  • Tailored Sleeve Head Ease
  • Tech Pack Design
    • How To Create A Tech Pack
    • T Shirt Tech Pack
    • Tech Pack Prices
  • Tech Pack Service Walthamstow
  • Textile Print Design
  • Vera
  • Vintage Sewing Patterns
  • Womenswear Designer

Recent Posts

  • How To Become A Pattern Cutter

    Four Year Degree Course. (067). When I began my...

Recent Comments

    Archives

    • December 2019

    Categories

    • Mixed


    Email: [email protected]
    © 2019. All rights reserved | The London Pattern Cutter

    TOP