Fashion Technology Videos now televised here in Philadelphia

Fashion Education Videos now televised on local Philadelphia TV station

The videos present industry's drafting and sample making procedures. All procedures can be done in the home with minimal equipment.

The drafting and sewing videos are televised to the Philadelphia Community via PhillyCAM.org, every Wednesday morning at 9 am.

The videos are supported by an eight-book series written over a 30 year period, that present how present how the industry drafts and sews. The books have been written by Laurel Hoffmann, a production patternmaker who developed her program and supporting books in her Continuing Professional Education program at two leading Philadelphia Universities. She is continuing to test her materials at the Abington Art Center where she now teaches.

These vastly improved production methods, developed in the USA during World War I and II, now used throughout the world's apparel industry, can be easily used in the home with only minimal equipment. These  methods are still not available to the general public, the reason Laurel decided to write her series of fashion technology books. Computer technology has made presenting this technology possible.

There are a number of reasons this information is not generally available. The most important reason is that the industry is line assembly. Many in industry know only their own, and perhaps a few other jobs involved in garment production. Other problems include the time it would take to write and diagram the procedures and the need for classroom testing. Use of the computer in apparel production also means that many in the industry do not have hands-on experience, required for presenting the procedures so they can be used in the home.  

Back in the late 1980s the apparel industry was going off shore, leaving many garment workers without jobs. Laurel decided to write down the design room skills the garment workers would need if they were to decide to

When Laurel worked as a patternmaker/grader/fit model in the factories in Philadelphia she saw how talented the women who did the production sewing in the factories were. Hard working, they were buying their homes, sending their children to school, getting ahead. Unfortunately when the factories closed, there was no way for these women to learn the design room skills that would have enabled them to start small businesses in their homes.

These women, and women like them have the potential to organize and work together. If design room skills were made available to residents in North and West Philadelphia, these communities might eventually be able to supply many of the cities throughout the world with high-end clothing. There would be no need of any factory building. Production would move from house-to-house. Some would design, others draft, cut, market, advertise. Only minimal drafting and sewing equipment would be needed. Many of the factory sewing machines, bought when the factories went off-shore, are still in women’s basements, some still being used.