How to Make a Coat - the handcraft tailor academy

by Tracy Gragg Fifth Generation,Savile row trained, awarding Mast

Video series available at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thehta

Since the release of my free video series The Making of a Coat in 2012, I realised the need for a ’how-to’ video series on coat making and an in-house coat making class, particularly Savile Row coat making.

So many people say, ‘tailoring is a dying art’. It's not because there are fewer people taking up the needle but rather aspiring tailors are finding it harder and harder to secure an apprenticeship under a master of the trade.

I fully support colleges and evening courses that offer classes on how to make a coat as it can really help a lot of people develop their skills and quench their thirst for knowledge. I myself enrolled in the London College of Fashions Handcraft Tailoring Diploma in 2005. The faculty made it out to be the only course one needed to take to become a tailor. That after one year you would know everything you needed to to venture into the trade and be a success. Of course, once I started there they sang a different tune. I was then told then that they don't turn out tailoring apprentices any more, the course was too short, the class sizes too big and the curriculum too broad to handle such a detailed subject as handcraft tailoring.

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