The Pattern Tutor

For sometime, flat pattern making had been looked on as unnecessary in some Nigerian tailoring spaces. I can remember a time when I was an apprentice learning the basics of tailoring in 2009, after graduating from secondary school, we had a lady come in from a Lagos fashion company to learn how to cut with freehand. She had sewing knowledge but didn’t know how to cut on her own. We actually laughed at her when she told us they used rulers to draw lines. As far as we were concerned, you had to learn how to draw perfectly straight lines with freehand. We thought it lazy even to use a ruler to draw lines. It was a time of ignorance honestly, but we weren’t the only ones with this type of mindset mainly because our fashion space then was one predominantly occupied with freehand tailors. Most tailors around us wanted to achieve a lot without spending an equivalent amount of time to achieve it. And you can’t really blame them, they have been using this process for a long time, it has worked ...

  Hello dear reader, I would love to bore you with the story of how I fell in love with fashion from a young age, how a certain Disney animation influenced not just my love for the art but my life in general, but I wouldn’t. I’m just going to introduce myself and probably along the line of you consistently reading this blog, you will come to know my story in full. Hi, my name is Kyimya and I'm a lot of things. But for the purpose of our meeting here I’ll say that I’m a teacher who has fallen into the laps of fashion and found her bosom to be most comforting. I love to share. Not everything but things that do matter. Now, up until two years ago, I would have never been caught claiming to enjoy teaching but today, it finally feels like I’ve found my place, my God given gift in life. I’m a fashion enthusiast, a bridal wear fashion designer and an educator with fashion as a medium. I’ve thought long and hard on how I’ll share my knowledge with the world, I’ve had two failed attempts on...