Couture garment-making workshops with Kathryn Brenne are in such demand that registration for an upcoming session filled up a mere hour and 25 minutes after Brenne sent out an email to eagerly awaiting students.
Cohosted with Brenne’s friend, British couturier Jon Moore — who has designed and made clothing for Queen Elizabeth — the workshops tutor students in the detailed, precision-like skills and techniques in creating hand-sewn, tailor-made garments.
In the days of mass production, where most shoppers pull their clothing off a rack, Brenne is heartened to see the art of garment-making endure.
“We’re pleased, especially, when there are some young people in the class, because it means that way of sewing isn’t going to die,” Brenne said.
“It’s an old, old way of sewing, and it’s going to be passed on to the next generation.”
Brenne’s love for sewing was sparked while growing up in southern Ontario, and she knew from a young age she wanted a career as a garment designer.
She worked in Toronto for three years after graduating from the fashion design program at Ryerson University, and then moved to North Bay after getting married. She’s now a mother of four.
Years of teaching and writing for leading sewing magazines like Threads, Vogue Patterns, Sew News and Butterick had allowed Brenne to build a reputation as a knowledgeable, skilled instructor, and in 2000, she opened the Academy of Fine Sewing and Design out of an addition built onto her home.
With room for just six students, the two-level studio has state-of-the-art equipment, lighting, and supplies — all fully designed and laid out by Brenne over a two-year period.
“If you want to do really good work, it helps if you have really good equipment and supplies,” Brenne said. “Everything is here for the student to be successful.”
In addition to the couture garment-making workshops, she offers open workshops three times a year, working with her students to make a garment from a pattern of their choosing.
At first, Brenne attracted mostly local enthusiasts, but today her students come from across Canada, the U.S. and as far as Mozambique to learn the techniques for which Brenne is known.
Students can also sign up for annual trips to European fashion capitals like London, Paris and Barcelona, which are focused on all things sewing, fashion and culture.
Over the last year, Brenne reached a new, exciting point in her career when she began designing garment and accessory patterns for Vogue Patterns, which releases patterns five times a year.
Brenne has now sold 15 designs to the company, and she continues to produce more.
Her first patterns came out in the fall 2015 catalogue, and they were an immediate success: out of 521 patterns the company released, sales of Brenne’s pattern for a skirt-pant-shirt combo came in at the number eight spot, a dream come true for Brenne.
“I was hoping when the first garment pattern came out it would be in the top 12, so being number eight was fantastic,” Brenne said. “It was beyond my expectations.”
Her success hasn’t stopped there: a handbag pattern from last fall came in at number 20, while a fall jacket pattern is currently selling at number seven. Because it’s doing so well, the pattern is being featured on the front cover of the Vogue fall catalogue.
“Now that these are doing really well, obviously they’re happy with that, so they’re continuing to buy two patterns for each release now,” Brenne said.
Brenne said her inspiration comes from an array of sources: she travels to New York and Europe frequently, keeps up to date with catalogues and mailings, and follows trends on the street and online.
A recent pattern for a fold-out travel bag stemmed from a Chinese lantern.
But essential for creativity, she said, is an open mind.
“Inspiration could come from outside, it could come from a silhouette, it could come from architecture; it could come from a lot of different sources,” she said.
“So when people say to me ‘I’m not very creative,’ well, you can be, and I think you can become a more creative person just by having an open mind.”
Brenne admits there aren’t enough hours in the day to do all the things she loves. In between the garment designing, workshops, and travel, she edits sewing-related books for a publishing company and writes for an online fabric blog.
But her reward is seeing her vision come to life on a dress stand, and knowing her patterns are being made, worn and appreciated by garment-makers around the world.
“To be (ranked) seven or eight and to be competing with world-famous names like DKNY or Donna Karan, Issey Miyake, and to be Canadian doing it,” she said, “I’m really proud that I’m Canadian and doing that with a company that sells patterns all over the world.”
