Can Hand Illustrations In Sewing Tutorials Bring Joy?

I always enjoyed doing hand illustrations. I think it began at a very young age when I received Fashion Plates one Christmas. The illustrations were so beautiful and the quick tracing with a chalk made me believe I was a flawless illustrator myself. Being the creative type, I quickly got bored with the many clothing options available in the box and began designing my own outfits using the bathing suit body as my background. More than thirty years later, I can still remember thinking I could do this forever.

Learning the trade

I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise then that I decided to go to fashion school. I wouldn’t say that illustration classes were my favorite subject because quite honestly, every single class was a favorite. That’s one of the benefits of choosing a field of study you love. But I was lucky to be relatively good at it and my teachers saw fit to recommend me for various illustration jobs the industry. Starting at 19, I was doing technical illustrations for companies on Chabanel St in Montreal. If you’re not in the industry tech drawings are scale illustrations of a garment you want to produce. Twenty-five years ago, they were all done by hand but since then, it’s much quicker to copy/paste and do a few modifications in illustrator.

When I began working as a designer, online tech drawings were part of my daily work, but we also used fashion illustrations on concept boards to show the head designer our proposal for the type of silhouettes were were working on. Basically it was one of our tools for the sales pitch.

After I left the industry and became a full time parent, I didn’t illustrate very much. I preferred to spend my free time drafting patterns for projects to mend, sew or knit. But when I began writing my tutorials for the Modern Mending patterns, I got the crazy idea of hand illustrating each step. Although incredibly time consuming compared to the instant advantage of taking a picture, I feel it turns the tutorial into a piece of practical art.

The timeless art of fashion illustrations

Hand illustrated objects often reminds me of the old Sears catalogues from the 1900s that my mother collected. Every product was hand illustrated and it felt magical to look at. The catalogue feels more like a story book than a sales tool. 40 years later, those same catalogs are still on her living-room coffee table. So it goes to show how something beautifully made can stand the test of time, even when it’s printed on paper.

Later on I discovered how stylish some fashion illustrations can be. The best in their era were René Gruau in the 40s and 50s, Antonio Lopez in the 70s and 80s and these days, Garance Doré has been recreating an amazing modern day version of the style. Fashion photograpy is wonderful but I find fashion illustrations to have that magical aura and essence of style that is irreplicable.

Finding new purpose for a lost art

So inspired by what feels like a dying art, and also recognizing that looking at something hand made brings me joy, I decided to hand illustrate each Modern Mending tutorial. Although it does take a bit more time to create each image than it would to take a photograph, I hope that it can serve the dual purpose of being informative and bring you joy to look at as well. I want you to cherish these patterns and tutorials for years to come.

Have a peek below at some of the illustrations that you find in the Modern Mending tutorials sold in the shop. I feel that a bit of old fashion craftsmanship can be a good way to have us to stop and pay attention for a little longer to what’s in front of us. Especially in our highly digitized world. What do you think? I would love to know your thoughts.

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