Fortunately, Laurel Hoffmann, production pattern maker, college professor, and author of many fashion technology textbooks – who I'm proud to say is also my mother – and I have been discussing how we could make a series of instructional videos.
When COVID-19 arrived, she volunteered to sew masks for non-profit organization CoverAid PHL, newly created to aid local hospitals.
I said, that's our first episode. And we made this:
That's Mom teaching in her basement studio. She's talking to the camera the same way she talks to her students. And she knows what she's talking about. Before the fashion industry left Philly with a lot of empty warehouses, she was running factories, drafting and grading patterns.
Already, the episode has reached 280 hits since it posted last week; Inside Fashion has added it to their website; an article is being written by a friend who works at the Baltimore Times; and, thanks to CoverAid PHL, clips from the video were included in this NBC10 News report.
The half-hour episode will air on the PhillyCAM channel in June. We're currently working on
