The development of a resource tool for the revitalisation and enhancement of sewing skills and expertise

Prolonged observations of fashion students highlighted a limited understanding of garment construction quality, technical knowledge and skills, timescale boundaries, and a lack of confidence to experiment with construction techniques; it was the realisation of these issues which initiated a study to revitalise and enhance sewing skill capability through a purposely designed resource tool. While originally developed to be used by fashion design students the resource tool when fully developed would also be useful for craft dressmakers to develop and enhance their skills and expertise. In the fashion student context an extensive literature review substantiated the observed sewing skills which was also verified by further industry personnel through interviews. While the salient points from the literature review and interviews are given the main purpose of this paper is to outline the development stages of the proposed resource tool which was designed to serve as an aid to revitalise and enhance garment construction knowledge, skills and expertise. The resource samples were inspired by clothing collections held in two UK archives thus offering an opportunity to revitalise some of the more complex construction techniques that are no longer used in modern mainstream fashion. The usefulness of the resource tool is also given along with future developments to improve the system.