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Figures Suggest Dressmaking Renaissance
Listed under: Top Story
Published: Monday, November 03, 2008
New figures on the popularity of dress-making classes suggest that the media love affair with customisation is starting to have an impact. According to Insights for Search, a free service that analyses a portion of Google enquiries, the number of people searching online for sewing classes is up 60% on last year. The results follow the recent conclusion of Twiggy's Frock Exchange on BBC2 which, along with Gok's Fashion Fix and T4's Frock Me, brought sewing and haberdashery into British living rooms. Newspaper editors have followed the trend, falling over themselves to bring cheap chic to their readers. Features explaining the value of customising clothes, embellishing homewares and handcrafting Christmas gifts are now commonplace in broadsheet newspapers. As the credit crunch bites, fashion magazines under pressure to soften the impact of their high fashion spreads with cheaper alternatives.
In an interview to be published in the upcoming issue of Craft Business, John Lewis's fashion fabric and haberdashery buyer Ed Connolly made clear the current importance of the sector to the brand. “The reality is that as a category we're growing, and quite quickly too,” he explains. “After a few years of decline in sales across these areas, this is one of the building areas from John Lewis and we're making money out of it. It's so important to our customers so it's a key part of what we're doing going forwards. The new branches opened recently in Liverpool and Cambridge have a fantastic space given over to fabric and haberdashery. Right throughout the organisation we're committed to it.”
Others agree with the significance of fashion-led sewing. “We're selling more habby and people are definitely leaning that way,” says Jim Chapman of Woking Sewing & Knitting Machine Centre. “The more newspaper articles there to support it are the better.” However Jim believes it's about time the consumer media repaid the industry for the negativity it has created. “We were talked into a recession by the newspapers – they said for two years things were going to be horrible. They turned out to be quite right but how much of it did they cause? I do think they have a role to play. A lady in The Telegraph did a great article but at the bottom it said to go and buy a sewing machine for £49.99 from Woolworths. That doesn't do the industry any good.”
Find out more about John Lewis's haberdashery strategy on Craft Business November/December published 21st November
Do you agree that dressmaking, customising and embellishing is on the up? Post your comments below or email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
In an interview to be published in the upcoming issue of Craft Business, John Lewis's fashion fabric and haberdashery buyer Ed Connolly made clear the current importance of the sector to the brand. “The reality is that as a category we're growing, and quite quickly too,” he explains. “After a few years of decline in sales across these areas, this is one of the building areas from John Lewis and we're making money out of it. It's so important to our customers so it's a key part of what we're doing going forwards. The new branches opened recently in Liverpool and Cambridge have a fantastic space given over to fabric and haberdashery. Right throughout the organisation we're committed to it.”
Others agree with the significance of fashion-led sewing. “We're selling more habby and people are definitely leaning that way,” says Jim Chapman of Woking Sewing & Knitting Machine Centre. “The more newspaper articles there to support it are the better.” However Jim believes it's about time the consumer media repaid the industry for the negativity it has created. “We were talked into a recession by the newspapers – they said for two years things were going to be horrible. They turned out to be quite right but how much of it did they cause? I do think they have a role to play. A lady in The Telegraph did a great article but at the bottom it said to go and buy a sewing machine for £49.99 from Woolworths. That doesn't do the industry any good.”
Find out more about John Lewis's haberdashery strategy on Craft Business November/December published 21st November
Do you agree that dressmaking, customising and embellishing is on the up? Post your comments below or email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
