It’s fair to expect a good kit of tools in a fashion design classes where a subject like designing is taught. The books, along with the toolkit shall meet the practical requirements of the course too. An ideal garment construction class should surely have enough tools for everyone in the batch.
The students of fashion designing courses are led through activities viz. drafting, draping, drawing, and sewing which will need a host of tools at hand’s reach. Good fashion designing institutes make sure their students get all the facilities to work on their craft smoothly and conveniently.
Here are a few must-haves to be present in any fashion design training.
Scissors for the cuts
Any student will need to do a lot of cutting. This could be cutting patterns, shaping garments or preparing a card prop for garment design. Having the suitable scissor for the right job is essential in fashion design training.
The light one with long handles can help with cutting out cards along with the drawings done on them as per the design. There’s another lightweight scissor that suits for cutting through material like silk and cutting through linings. For all cutting through for fabrics like cotton, wool and silk, the heavier one is aptly used.
The scissors used are best to be comfortable for the hands that use them and definitely need to be sharp to receive a perfect result. They also need to be properly maintained with regular sharpening and oiling.
Tools for the measure
A good tape is essential for a designer who will constantly have to measure the clothing and the torso it’s made for. A typical student will be hanging it around the neck all through the day, which is one of the typical sights in fashion design classes.
A Grader Set Square is another essential measuring tool used to measure the lines and corners. It’s rigid unlike tape, which is flexible and helps best in measuring arms and sleeves.
A Fashion Curve is used to make curves for the neck, hips, armhole, bias and curved seam allowance and right angle markings.
A pattern maker comes in handy for drawing curves for sleeves, necklines, waistline, trouser crotches, hipline and for seam allowance.
Pearl Head Pins
It helps to keep things in place and helps to categorize the materials by using coloured ones! They are easy to pick, stick and safer to handle due to their pearl-headed. A magnetic pin holder will make it much easier to manage.
Pearl head pins are also good in having uniform and perfect sizes. They are in all obviousness and an essential part of a designer’s regular day at the job in class.
Sewing machine
A sewing machine is the most important tool of the whole fashion designing idea after the scissor. An industrial sewing machine lets designers’ dream attires take form. It takes some consideration and focus on a few aspects to buy one for the class of beginners.
The budget of a sewing machine should not compromise the utility intended. There will be needs like a variety of stitches and features to easily adjust the width of the stitches.
However, cheaper and noisier ones can ruin the fun of creation.
Dress forms
A dress form is the model of a torso on which clothes stitched are tried on to get the real picture of the fit and form of the dress. The aim is to enable the designer to make alterations or improvements on the garment if needed. Dress forms are available in adjustable and stock-size varieties. It may not be a matter of choice between the two, considering that the students would want to create dresses for different body sizes.
At colleges for fashion design, the best facilities given to the students include the good quality tools and materials that are provided to them in fashion design classes to learn and practice garment construction with ease and enthusiasm.