Make, alter and repair tailored garments and formal clothing for clients.

As a Tailor or Dressmaker, you interpret designs and patterns, cut and prepare fabrics, sew garments, and complete fittings to ensure proper shape and style. You adjust garments for size and comfort, finish details such as buttonholes and fasteners, and work with a range of materials from everyday fabrics to delicate couture textiles. Your role blends technical sewing skill with creativity and precision.

For further information:
United Workers Union – SA
Ph: 1800 622 900
Email: membership@unitedworkers.org.au
Website: www.unitedworkers.org.au

Australian Sewing Guild
Email: office@aussew.org.au
Website: www.aussew.org.au

Australian Fashion Council (AFC)
Ph: (03) 8610 0500
Email: info@ausfashioncouncil.com
Website: www.ausfashioncouncil.com

TAFE SA offers courses relevant to this occupation including the Diploma of Apparel, Fashion and Textiles. Pathways include the Certificate III in Apparel, Fashion and Textiles

Flinders University offers a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Fashion/Diploma of Apparel, Fashion and Textiles) and Bachelor of Creative Arts (Costume Design/Diploma and Advanced Diploma of Visual Arts where you study concurrently at both the University and TAFE SA to complete both Awards.

Still unsure? Then try a short course also offered through TAFE SA such as Pattern Making for Beginners or Sewing Your Own Fashion. Check the website for the full list of courses.

Many tailors and dressmakers work in garment factories, where garments are mass produced. Mass production begins with a designed, sample product that is converted into a pattern - usually by a computerised CAD/CAM pattern making system. Once the pattern codes are entered, the markers or pieces of paper drawn to scale and size are 'spat' out from the other end. A factory like this can have as many as 26,000 patterns encoded on the computer. Next, the fabric is laid out on tables with the markers and cut manually, or in some firms, by automated cutting machines. Even the placement of the markers is worked out using computer programs to make sure that there is no wastage of material. The material is then sorted into bundles, ready to be sewn by different machinists and dressmakers, who focus on either zips, collars, polo logos or washing instruction tags. All the pieces are then assembled and the final sewing, such as the overlocking, buttonholing and embroidery is completed.

As the industry becomes more automated, many of these sewing stages become taken over by specialised machines. And no wonder! A pocket making machine (placket machine) can make a pocket in six seconds, saving a lot of time when you're having to add 2,500 pockets on shirts a day.

For those dressmakers and tailors who are self-employed there are long hours, with little remuneration unless you have an established clientele or a good reputation.

Working with machinery can also be physically demanding and repetitive, and you will need good eyesight for the finer, more intricate work. Although design and creativity are important components in the work of a dressmaker or tailor, other skills such as machining and pattern cutting may be utilised more in larger firms. Those working closely with clients need to have great communication skills, having to interpret a client's wishes, whether it's making a suit for a businessman, or liaising with a manager of a hotel chain who wants to clothe hundreds of employees.

With the growing trend for people to buy their clothes more cheaply, off the rack, there is a declining demand for the services of a tailor. Many tailors have to branch out in other nontraditional clothing areas such as the design and production of uniforms and do a mix of mass-produced garments and tailor-made garments.