How to become Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer in 2024

Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer Design, make, alter, repair, or fit garments.

Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer is Also Know as

In different settings, Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer is titled as

  • Alterations Expert
  • Alterations Sewer
  • Bridal Designer
  • Clothing Pattern Designer
  • Custom Dressmaker
  • Custom Sewer
  • Custom Tailor
  • Dressmaker
  • Seamstress
  • Tailor

Education and Training of Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer

Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer is categorized in Job Zone Two: Some Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer

Some previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is usually needed. For example, a teller would benefit from experience working directly with the public.

Education Required for Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer

These occupations usually require a high school diploma.

Degrees Related to Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer

Training Required for Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer

Employees in these occupations need anywhere from a few months to one year of working with experienced employees. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer in different industries are

What Do Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer do?

  • Fit and study garments on customers to determine required alterations.
  • Sew garments, using needles and thread or sewing machines.
  • Measure parts, such as sleeves or pant legs, and mark or pin-fold alteration lines.
  • Take up or let down hems to shorten or lengthen garment parts, such as sleeves.
  • Let out or take in seams in suits and other garments to improve fit.
  • Assemble garment parts and join parts with basting stitches, using needles and thread or sewing machines.
  • Remove stitches from garments to be altered, using rippers or razor blades.
  • Record required alterations and instructions on tags, and attach them to garments.
  • Examine tags on garments to determine alterations that are needed.
  • Fit, alter, repair, and make made-to-measure clothing, according to customers' and clothing manufacturers' specifications and fit, and applying principles of garment design, construction, and styling.
  • Maintain garment drape and proportions as alterations are performed.
  • Press garments, using hand irons or pressing machines.
  • Trim excess material, using scissors.
  • Develop, copy, or adapt designs for garments, and design patterns to fit measurements, applying knowledge of garment design, construction, styling, and fabric.
  • Make garment style changes, such as tapering pant legs, narrowing lapels, and adding or removing padding.
  • Measure customers, using tape measures, and record measurements.
  • Estimate how much a garment will cost to make, based on factors such as time and material requirements.
  • Repair or replace defective garment parts, such as pockets, zippers, snaps, buttons, and linings.
  • Confer with customers to determine types of material and garment styles desired.
  • Position patterns of garment parts on fabric, and cut fabric along outlines, using scissors.
  • Sew buttonholes and attach buttons to finish garments.
  • Put in padding and shaping materials.

Qualities of Good Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer

  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.

Tools Used by Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer

  • Blind stitching machines
  • Buttonhole makers
  • Chain stitching machines
  • Chalk pencil holders
  • Coiless safety pins
  • Computer laser printers
  • Computerized sewing machines
  • Desktop computers
  • Dress forms
  • Dressmakers shears
  • Fabric machines
  • French curves
  • Industrial sewing machines
  • Ironing presses
  • Measuring tapes
  • Pinking shears
  • Point turners
  • Pressing mitts
  • Razor knives
  • Rotary fabric cutters
  • Seam creasers
  • Seam measurement gauges
  • Seam rippers
  • Seam rolls
  • Serrated pattern tracing wheels
  • Sewing needles
  • Sleeve boards
  • Steam fabric pressing machines
  • Steam irons
  • Steel straight pins
  • Tailor's hams
  • Tailor's point scissors
  • Tailoring rulers
  • Transparent rulers

Technology Skills required for Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewer

  • ArbelSoft TailorMax
  • Bookkeeping software
  • Garment design software
  • Google Docs
  • Inventory tracking software
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Word
  • Tailor Master