Learning to draft my own sewing patterns has been a long old process so far. Having spent the last (academic) year learning to create them the old fashioned way with pencil and paper, I’m now tackling the seemingly enormous task of digitising my patterns and learning to use a piece of software that I can design in end-to-end in future. I’ve tried various pieces of software to date, though it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster – as you’ll know if you’ve read my post about learning digital pattern cutting – and I’ve now settled on using Clo3D.
Why I chose Clo3D
I didn’t want to try Clo3D for quite a while because I really dislike the software-as-a-service model. This comes from my past experience with Adobe Creative Cloud, which wasn’t the best (the short story is they kept upping the cost without providing any meaningful bug updates or software fixes and I got sick of it – not to mention the vast quantity of “temporary” files Adobe creates which I discovered had been clogging up my computer’s hard drive). Having finally accepted that I just wasn’t getting along with the alternatives that I’d found, I decided to download Clo3D on a 30 day trial.
If you haven’t come across it before, Clo3D is an all-in-one fashion design software created with the intention of making fashion design a sleeker, faster process without lots of waste. It’s one way that the industry can begin to tackle its enormous and embarrassing amounts of pollution, as it combines flat pattern cutting (the traditional method of designing and creating garments) with 3D avatars and renders of various fabrics and detailing. The sizes of the avatars can be easily and quickly changed and the 3D space enables the pattern designer to see issues with fit and style lines well before it gets to making samples or toiles of the garment. This means a lot of paper and fabric waste can be eliminated in the early stages of creating designs and it makes it easier for big companies to work collaboratively on a design.
This combination of flat pattern cutting and 3D space is what attracted me to the software. As much as I love using Affinity Designer and their new V2 software, which looks like it’ll become the standard software for digital flat pattern cutting, this was only released after I’d already started working with Clo3D. I was a little conflicted at first, because while I’d already started using Clo3D, I know where I stand with Designer and I prefer the one-time license model. My husband, however, pointed out that part of the reason I’d been struggling with using Designer V1 was because it’s not a dedicated pattern cutting software and that was why I’d chosen Clo3D. Designer V2 will also likely have some of the same issues I faced when pattern cutting in paper – namely that I would still need to make physical toiles of the patterns to see any issues with fit or style lines, or learn (and pay for) yet another program in order to see these problems in 3D.
Ultimately, the software has to be right for the person and Clo3D seems to suit how I like to work – though I will still be using Designer V2 for other things.
While Clo3D is a subscription software, it doesn’t lock you into a fixed time period – so you can pay for a month or two, cancel the subscription and then reactivate it a few months later when you need it again. The files remain on your computer, so there’s no need to worry about Clo3D deleting them while you aren’t using the software. That works quite well for me at the moment, as I’m due to have a baby in mid-March and so I’m unlikely to use the software for several months after the birth. If you do choose to buy a year’s license though, it’s much cheaper than paying monthly for the year – $450 total vs $600 for the “individual” plan (which includes single person companies). This is also much cheaper than other dedicated standalone software – especially when you factor in the different modules that you need for those softwares – and Clo3D is one of the very few pattern design suites which works natively on Mac, so I don’t have to buy a whole new computer either. So not only does it suit how I like to work and fits around big events in my life, it suits the computer architecture that I already have and am used to working with.
Getting started
When I decided to give the free trial a go, I started watching some of Clo3D’s Youtube tutorials before even downloading the software. That way I could be certain it was a good choice for me and that I could start the trial with at least basic knowledge of the software. To be fair to them, these tutorials are very good and do explain a lot about how to use the program, however I still found it quite daunting and didn’t know how to make the best of the free trial. The main problem was that each tutorial leader would have a different way of doing a particular task – and many of them drafted basic blocks very differently to how I’d been taught on my college course.
I therefore decided to look for dedicated courses online on how to use the software and came across Lena Merrin’s course on Udemy. Not only is it a course led by a single tutor, Lena also drafted the basic skirt block according to Winifred Aldrich’s method, which is how I learned to draft too. If you’ve learned drafting in a similar method and are struggling to transfer those skills to digital pattern cutting, I’d really recommend the course. It’s designed for folks who have pattern drafting knowledge already, so while there’s a whole section on how to flat pattern draft in the 2D window (which is very straightforward and just involves swapping a few of Ms Aldrich’s instructions around), it also shows how to draft straight onto the avatar and “flatten” the pattern pieces.
There’s still a huge amount to Clo3D that Lena Merrin’s course doesn’t cover (it’s only a beginner’s introductory course, after all), however it has been a fantastic introduction to this software and has helped me to navigate my way through digitising and developing my patterns. I really do appreciate the 3D features and how easy it is to see problems and fix them. I like that I can simulate how the garments will look not only on a person while they’re standing still, but also while they’re moving – and that there are lots of people (both from Clo3D’s internal team and other users) who have put time and effort into creating simulations of different fabrics and trims as close to reality as is possible.
Next steps
So now that I’ve learned the basics of how to use Clo3D, what next?
Well, the short answer is get my pattern collection drafted, graded and tested. I’m still intending to make toiles of the garments before sending them to testing, but ideally these should be the last stage of my own internal tests, with the 3D tools available forming the earlier stages. This is actually the point that I’m at right now; I’m in the middle of drafting my three patterns across two base sizes so that I can grade them across my entire size range. I don’t know yet how long it’s going to take me, but I’m aiming to put out a call for testers some time this month. I’ve moved back to working from home now though (most of what I do for my other business now is administrative, so I don’t actually need to be at the workshop all the time) which means that until I take maternity leave, I have a bit more time and flexibility to focus on getting these patterns done and released into the wild.
Beyond this, I have a long list of pattern ideas that I want to pursue, though many of them will require further learning of the software. It may be a little while before these ideas get their chance to become more than just an idea, but that’s okay.
