This week is Fashion Revolution and we wanted to focus on highlighting and learning more about some of our passionate and creative designers who make Makerist possible! To start off, we spoke to Saara & Laura of Named Patterns about their journey as pattern designers, the breakdown of designer costs, and how sustainable patterns are made! Support their shop here.
- Can you tell us a bit about your designer brand?
Named is a Helsinki-based indie pattern label and a family business founded in 2013, by us sisters Saara & Laura Huhta. We design and produce timeless sewing patterns for the fashion-forward and conscious sewist. Named has released nine pattern collections and two sewing books so far. One can also read all about us at www.namedclothing.com.
2. What are your daily tasks as a pattern designer?
Our daily tasks can look very different depending on the time of the year and what we’re working on at the moment! What we do every day, is going through our emails, and fulfilling orders, but our day could also include design, sewing or pattern making and development, as well as writing or illustrating instructions. We employ a part-time sales and marketing assistant, but other tasks we do ourselves, so there’s definitely a great variety of tasks to do!
3. How long does it take to make a pattern? What are the steps involved?
It depends so much on what type of a pattern we’re making, and whether it is an individual pattern or a pattern collection. But generally making a pattern takes at least a few months. We start by designing, then pattern making and sewing the first prototypes. We make as many prototypes as needed to make the design and fit as perfect as possible, and then we sew samples from fashion fabrics. We arrange a photoshoot for the samples, and as soon as the design is ready, we write and illustrate the sewing instructions, and send them and the pattern to our testers for testing. We make alterations to both according to our tester feedback, and then finalize the pattern into a sellable pdf, as well as a possible printed pattern.
4. What made you want to become a pattern designer?
Our love for fashion and sewing, as well as our will to make the world a better place by offering a more sustainable, ethical and fun alternative for fast fashion!
5. Could you give us a breakdown of designing costs? This could be to create and make one pattern?
This depends so much on what kind of a pattern is in question, and whether it is part of a collection or an individual pattern. What costs in making a pattern is materials used for the samples and product development, and photo shoot costs. But what costs the most is our time, and developing a pattern requires quite a bit of it!
6. How do you create sustainable patterns as a designer?
Choosing to sew one’s own clothes is a more sustainable and responsible choice in itself, but we also encourage our sewists to carefully consider the fabrics they use. We have actually just released a sustainable fabric guide on our site, which we hope is helpful in deciding what fabrics to choose (https://namedclothing.com/pages/material-guide)! We also recommend embracing the process itself and sewing slower, less, but better – more carefully, and from sustainable and durable materials.
7. Why do prefer making your clothes rather than buying them?
There are so many reasons to choose self-made instead of ready-to-wear! Firstly, by sewing your own clothes you can be sure that they have been produced ethically (of course you will also need to ensure that the materials used are as responsible as possible). Self making is, inevitably, slower than buying off the rack, which can mean consuming less fashion. You can take care that your fabrics are of good quality and long-lasting, by making them carefully and choosing good fabrics. And last but not the least, sewing is fun and so rewarding!
