" Fashion I knew was going to be my career in some form, but I never could have imagined that it would bring me here!"
About Evelyn Wood - Vintage Fashion House
and Vintage Sewing School
Do your sewing aspirations go something like this...
Fortunately, after near a lifetime of sewing and dressmaking, the above is mostly true for me...that is only now!
Let me tell you straight up, it wasn’t always this way!
I started with very humble sewing beginnings, and at times after throwing my disastrous project to the corner I often just thought “This is too hard for me”.
But, I had persistence. I just kept practising. Little by little I got better. And I eventually got there!
Now my diving passion is teach you how to do the same!
" It is my mission to create more dressmakers in this world, and I hope you’re one of them! "
And that Is what I do here at the Vintage Fashion House and why I created Vintage Sewing School online!
Some of the many hats I wear include
Founder of Vintage Sewing School
My online school where all my course are that will help you be the dressmaker you want to be!
Sewing teacher
I have taught sewing classes for years helping hundreds learn the skill
Dressmaker
I do fine dressmaking for a select few clients, specialising in bridal and vintage restorations
Fashion designer
I design and make for myself and others
Workshop Host
I run sewing and vintage fashion workshops around the globe
YouTube Creator
You tube is how I get my message out to the world and I just love creating videos on the topics I’m interested and I know will my help tribe followers who are just like me!
Hi! I’m Evelyn!
And this is my sewing journey...
My sewing journey started way back in my first year of high school, in my much loved home economics class! The only subject in school that I was top of class in!
From day 1 I was hooked! I was in love idea of being able to make my own clothes and that I could actually create the fashion ideas I had in my head! But… the only sewing machine we had at home was my Mum’s old ‘display’ (ie: was never used until this day it only ever had ornamental intentions) Singer treadle machine, and so I just used what I had!
Luckily it was clear that my burning desire to create my own clothes was not going anywhere and the very next Christmas I got my first sewing machine wrapped up under the tree! I was 14!
Now this was pre internet!!! No video tutorials, no asking Google for help, no way to get information in the small town I was in! Needless to say no one in my family sewed, and the only person in my life that I could get help from was was my home economics teachers!
So with only a little guidance in class, I really had to learn through trial and error, with more errors than I frankly care to recall!
But I loved it! I loved the creation process and the more I practised, I just got better and better! I would alter and refashion the clothes I had in my wardrobe already, and ‘deconstruct’ them to see how they were made and see if I could make mine just as good as the shop clothes!
By the end of high school I was taking on more complicated projects like my formal (that’s what we call our Prom in Australia!) dress, a faux fur trim full length coat with welt pockets (ok the welts ended up falling apart because I didn't really know what I was doing, remember the trial and error part I mention!), and even started playing with pattern drafting (without much success yet!).
Finally it was onto fashion school and the big bad world! I worked many different jobs over the years, couture bridal, brand management, luxury retail, vintage store…. But I knew that life was not for me!
It was when I finally combined my love of vintage fashion and sewing that I took the leap to start my own business and Evelyn Wood - Vintage Fashion House was born!
Fashion I knew was going to be my career in some form, but I never could have imagined that it would bring me here!
I know you wanted to see it! My formal dress! (I still have it too!)
Some of my favourite things...
