What It’s Like to Take Bespoke Tailoring at SLIM’s Fashion and Arts School

There’s more to a tailored jacket than meets the eye. Underneath the perfectly stitched lapel and crisp measured shoulders is a lot of work done by hand. One designer who wanted to learn the ins and outs of creating such a bespoke piece is Iloilo-based fashion designer Peach Garde.

Considered one of SLIM’s instructors and Fashion Designer Milka Quin’s “best students” since the online iteration of the course was launched, we spoke to Peach Garde to ask about his experience. “It has been my dream to continue my education in fashion especially in menswear. It would be hard for me to transfer from Iloilo, and when the pandemic hit the course was offered online,” he shares.

Below, he details how fulfilling the course was and why designers should try their hand advancing their tailoring skills as well.

Can you share how the lecture or module experience was?

PG: It was my first course with SLIM’s and I didn’t have any idea how the class would go. I expected it to be even harder on a different setup, but it just felt like learning in a classroom. The different areas of the course would always be presented in the most understandable way, and the methods were curated systematically and supplemented with slides and videos. The class meets only twice a week but the instructor is ready to respond to queries during off-days, even on a weekend.

What was the most difficult part of the course?

PG: Proper shaping is vital in bespoke [tailoring]. The challenging part was the physical checking of the output (the sleeve cap shape for example). It may look okay in the pictures, while in reality there were areas which need improvement - which could have been relined or corrected.

What was the easiest?

PG: The digital materials and instructions made it easy to learn the methods. Watching the videos and sample pictures were just systemically fine to follow.

How satisfying was it when you finished the jacket?

PG: Aside from realizing that it’s hard, and would really take ample time to create a bespoke piece, I couldn’t believe that I had made one and felt so ready to create more.