Image: Garments Christine Mayer, photography (c) Billy & Hells. 

Our next virtual workshop is Upcycling and Draping with Christine Mayer, running on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 June 2020. Berlin-based fashion designer Christine Mayer has built a fashion career on re-purposing clothing and breathing new life into old garments. She is a pioneer of three-dimensional free draping with fabric, an art form she has adapted and developed from her studies in classical Japanese drapery. When it comes to clothing design, Christine’s style is recognisable for its collage aesthetics, where pattern and fabric constantly interrupt each other’s spaces. “Material that has been marked by life” is one of Christine’s biggest inspirations.

Image: Garments Christine Mayer, photography (c) Billy & Hells.

During the workshop sessions you will experiment, research, and explore new ways of dealing with fabrics, colours, forms and textile feels in your design and artistic process. Working directly on a dress form you will learn from Christine how to drape and stitch in an artful way to create original items of clothing that fit you like a second skin and express your personal style. This fresh and liberating way of making clothes brings with it a new set of possibilities that have far more in common with sculpting than dressmaking.

Image: Christine Mayer workshop.

Each participant will be guided and supported gently by Christine with the three-
dimensional work on the dress form. Through presentations in front of the group, and in individual feedback you will experience a completely new way of dealing with fabric and pattern making, via visual and hands-on approaches. It won’t take long for you to understand the principles of working three-dimensionally and you’ll enjoy the process of allowing your garments to evolve.

Participant feedback on Christine’s virtual workshops: “Thanks for the wonderful class yesterday. The classes and the videos are just terrific!,” “I’ve sewn up the dress we draped in the first workshop and I love it!”, “The more I handle the fabric, the more I understand your instructions about ‘feeling’ where the fabric wants to move to.”

For more information and to buy tickets visit Selvedge Workshops.