For several months now I have been working as a pattern-maker for a local company which has produced designer garments for over forty years. It was a wonderful pleasure, but also somewhat difficult for a fashion technician with over fifteen-years of experience to work on-site in an Italian production house.
It is a family owned business which has existed for forty years, I have been living in Italy for almost eight years and having arrived here I only spoke English, my mother-tongue and Spanish. Fortunately at the beginning my Spanish helped me get by!
It was wonderful to see Tom Ford, Vionnet, Dolce and Gabbana completed and in the process gowns around the shop everyday. But for me it was also frustrating to be able to be confident about my pattern-making and communication skills, and identify how diffrent the culture is. Therefore the process each person I worked with was always completely, or slightly different then my own. The terminology was another hard obstacles to overcome, not knowing the terms in Italian, did not allow me to work as a confident pattern-maker that I know I am. I also had to have respect, after all I was the "new-comer". Everyone already had their set way of doing things.
Overall it was a wonderful experience for me to begin from the sketch of the design, draft the pattern, assist in some of the sewing of some of the samples, then seeing the items on the runway on the Vogue web-site.
I am very thankful I was given the opportunity!