"Dressmaking" is the name this Japanese magazine. Our story was a destiny. On my birthday we went to one of the coolest book shops in the world (No kidding!) After spending hours browsing in the shop we went to Anjin cafe to treat ourselves with the outstanding hot chocolate (¥900 a cup aie!!). The shelves in this "living room" are filled with magazines arranged by topic. And as I lifted my eyes from the cup of hot chocolate the first word I saw was ドレスマーキング. I took few issues and my eyes lit up with excitement: the magazine features detailed explanations to patternmaking, reports on the "latest fashion from Paris" and, of course, stylish Japanese ladies. Unfortunately, the magazine was not for sale and I started looking for a place online to buy it. And here they are, cute CUTE 2 issues of ドレスマーキング which costed me ¥7000 but I consider it as my be-later birthday present.

I shut up for now and flick through some pages

Fancy underwear! It says" Brassiere", Slip petticoat", "Camisole"

Paris street fashion. That's how ladies in Paris looked like in early 50's

October elegance! I can so imagine myself wer this chic ensemble

Lots of very detailed instruction to patternmaking

Japanese beautiful ladies

More Japanese ladies of the early 50's

Latest Dior collection and some funky ad on the left ;)

More haute couture. Makes dreamy even girls from the 2010', no?

Dior's wedding dress

Jokes are timeless!!!

BROTHER antique ad.

Isn't it cool!?

At the time I became a student of ESMOD Japan I lived in Tokyo for only 10 months and my Japanese was far from perfect (in fact it still is). After my first lesson I was crying in the school's toilet because I could not understand what the teacher was saying not could I express even half of what I wanted to say. But I said to myself that this can be a chance not only to improve my Japanese but also to improve my sewing using additional methods: books & online. That's how I met Craftsy.com ;)

Craftsy is a great addition to my ESMOD classes and I have quickly learned so much techniques!

I love Craftsy lessons because the lessons are taught by experts. You can watch videos as many times as you want. I like the idea to post questions, take notes and interact with teachers and the community. All teachers are answer questions within 24 hours. In fact, lots of additional information to the lesson you can find in Q&A's.

I started with the bombshell dress. The lesson is taught by Gretchen Hirsch, expert in vintage sewing techniques. Her blog is another great addition to my sewing education.

When Craftsy.com launched the couture dress with Susan Khalje I immediately enrolled.  




We've just started creating the dress at school  and I even applied some couture techniques to my red princess seam dress from the previous post! When you pay for this lesson you also receive  VOGUE dress pattern. 

Pattern is declined into several variation.

Next stop was another lesson with Gretchen: Starlet Suit Jacked.  The pattern was drafted by Gretchen exclusively for Craftsy. To be honest, I am not sure this particular style would be flattering to my figure, but since we are going to make a jacket during the second year in ESMOD I can pick up and apply some techniques to it as well.