Author(s): Amanda Riley

Design & Designers

The Fashion Factory is a new kind of making book for today's highly fashion-aware girls and young women. To create the clothes seen within the pages of this book, you don't need any special skills other than an interest in fashion and style, a willingness to have a go and cut up old clothes plus a love of rummaging around in thrift shops. As well as teaching you the basic set of sewing skills as you create garments such as The vintage scarf top and The dungaree dress, The Fashion Factory will aid you to develop an eye for trends, styles, silhouettes, colours and prints. With the projects arranged from easy to intermediate, you can start with the garments that you can tackle by yourself even if you've never used a sewing machine before. The Fashion Factory offers an alternative to shopping on the high street. By encouraging the creative upcycling and repurposing of textiles, making your own cloth can avoid waste rather than add to landfill. Learning to make clothes also develops other skills, such as maths, problem solving, planning, hand-eye coordination and patience. The basic construction methods of garments have many elements in common, so this repetition aids accuracy and speed, whilst the personalised decorative elements really make each piece unique. The book includes 12 projects, varying in difficulty and style, but all with a focus on creating something individual that the designer/maker will be proud to wear.