Ecole Holt Couture Information Seminar

Ecole Holt Couture will be hosting its Information Seminar for those interested in enrolling, on
Thursday April 14th from 7 to 9 pm.
You must register for this free information seminar by email: info@ecoleholtcouture.com
*Registration deadline date for the seminar closes Monday April 11th.
[due to limited spaces available EHC reserves the right to reschedule or schedule and additional Information Seminar date]

General admissions information:
First, to make your application for enrollment, contact EHC by phone or by email requesting a Prospectus.
Then, because École Holt Couture School of Couture Sewing and Design’s curriculum is truly unique, we schedule an information seminar at the school to help you decide whether Ecole Holt Couture School of Couture Sewing and Design is the right fit for you.
The information seminar is presented to further explain EHC’s mission and goals, curriculum and instructional methods, and to answer your specific questions so you can make an informed decision about your education opportunities. (more scroll down)

In summary – what you need to know before you start.

Admission Requirements
Standard Admission:
• High School Diploma or Equivalent (GED, diploma from another province)
• Parental/legal guardian signed consent if under the age of 18
• Demonstrate an aptitude for sewing or fashion, passionate commitment to couture fashion
• Successful completion of interview with EHC

Mature Students:
• Must be out of school for at least 2 years
• Minimum of 19 years of age
• Must complete and submit a high school equivalency exam result (GED or CAST) to EHC
• Demonstrate an aptitude for sewing or fashion, passionate commitment to couture fashion
• Successful completion of interview with EHC

In addition – ESL Students:
• Fulfill the above with the addition of submitting successful result of standardized ESL test ( eg . TOEFL) to EHC

About the School Year – what to expect

Each school Year begins in early September and ends the following June. The year consists of 3 Terms which each run 10 consecutive weeks, including a break between each term. Classes are held twice weekly for 10 hours, or 5 hours per class, including a short lunch break. The remaining 3 days are required for lab (or homework) mandatory studies which takes up 30 or more hours per week. You must expect to dedicate 40 hours per week for classes and homework during the year to successfully complete each program.

Very important: Students must have free access to a dedicated work space or studio in which to do homework projects and assignments. Ideally a separate room, with good natural, ambient and task lighting, preferably self-contained and protected from through traffic and everyday disturbances. (What we are saying is, using a kitchen space is not acceptable). Your studio space could be accommodated within your bedroom area – if no other suitable space is available.

How to go about making an application
1. Request a Prospectus by telephone or email.
2. After you receive a Prospectus, review all the information carefully.
3. Return your signed and completed application forms, by the stated deadline. Only completed applications are reviewed by the school’s selection committee.

Letters of acceptance (plus required tools/materials list), or letters of regret, or waiting list letters, are forwarded to you within 6 weeks of your application being received by EHC’s registrar.
*Email info@ecoleholtcouture.com for current application deadlines.

How much does it cost for each Program

Certificate Full Tuition $23,700
Registration Fee $500 – This fee is later deducted from tuition fees
Books $250 – Students are given a resource list and are free to purchase their own copies
Equipment $2000 – Most of this initial equipment cost is good for both programs and should last you for many years thereafter.
*Materials $3000 – Students are given a resource list to search out and purchase their own required materials as they become necessary for projects.

Diploma Full Tuition $27,300
Registration Fee $500 – same as above
Books $500 – same as above
Equipment $2400 – This advanced equipment in addition to the Certificate program equipment, is useful not only for school use, but for use after graduation for many years to come.
*Materials $5000 – same as above

*Materials costs vary widely and are subject to market fluctuations.
A financing schedule for Tuition fees may be available for Registered students.

What do I do with all my projects at the end of the program?

Each year in November EHC presents a fashion show, open to the public, to feature the couture garments students have created. Graduates of the Diploma Program will have developed outstanding wardrobe items consisting of approximately 30 – 40 full scale, plus 10 – 20 half scale couture garments, and accessories valuing more than the total investment in tuition fees and materials combined.

Each project garment increases in complexity of style and design, and reflects, of course, the student’s increasing level of skill and competency. All garments created during the program are designed to be completely wearable and reflect a tangible portfolio, which exhibits the skills and experience graduates will have acquired during their time at Ecole Holt Couture.

[Please note that at this time Ecole Holt Couture is not able to accept international students.]

 

Tuesday March 31st, 2015 – Back to class

We’ve just left two weeks of Spring break behind us. Well, it wasn’t so much a break as quiet work-time to catch up for most of us here, and part one of the final Certificate exam is being written today. The programs are pretty intense, and if you do get behind even for one or two days, the work piles up incredibly quickly. Students all work very long hours for the duration of the programs, and as an administrator as well as instructor, my job doesn’t end at the close of class either. It usually runs late into the evenings and into weekends replying to emails and keeping up with necessary paperwork. It didn’t get any easier when Ecole Holt Couture became a designated Private Vocational Training institution licensed by the Alberta government of Advanced Innovation and Education department.

We often get questions about EHC’s programs and the equivalency of its certificate awards to other degrees. So here it goes.

Both Ecole Holt Couture programs are recognized by the Advanced Innovation and Advanced Education government department of Alberta, Canada.

EHC’s Dressmaking Certificate program is designed for self directed employment as well as the prerequisite program to enter the EHC Couturier/Tailoring Diploma program. The Diploma program is designed for self directed employment or free lance work, as well as entry level positions for apprenticeships. As such, there is no equivalent to our Certificate and Diploma programs. The entire curriculum is unique and original, written by the Founder, based on her education and 60 plus years of professional experience in the trade of couture and tailoring in Europe and Canada.

The reason that Ecole Holt Couture was established and its sole existence is to preserve and pass on traditional practical skills with its related professional technical knowledge not currently being taught in fashion or design institutions. As we’ve ventured to more modern approaches, focusing on off-shore manufacturing and marketing, the nature of educational programs have evolved to meet the demands of the fashion industry.

What is being left out is formalized training in couture and tailoring. Expert mentoring, the transference of knowledge and sharing of experience, not least of which is teaching the fundamental skills for a couture and tailoring career alternative – not typically included in the ‘industry’ statistics today.

So where are the statistics for couturiers and tailors to be found then, if not in the fashion industry? In our research, we have found them to be placed squarely in the arts and culture sector as craftsmen and artisans. see Cultural Human Resources Council

At EHC we do not teach quick and easy step by step do-at-home projects, that follow trendy designs adapting ready made patterns for sewing enthusiasts nor do we teach how to manipulate CAD programs. This training is meant for the serious career-minded individual to gain the expertise to take an original design idea and craft it into a fully formed product, by your own hands. What then is the exact degree equivalent, remains a good question. Cheers! J

 

Ecole Holt Couture 2014 Presents – Youtube video trailer

Watch Video

At EHC we are very fortunate to have talented students with varied skills. ‘You’re Invited’ was created by one such student, Amy Zia, as a light-hearted look at what we do as couturiers! But, don’t be fooled, what we do is highly professional whether for special occasions or to create a functional and personal business wardrobe.

This fashion event is created to help raise awareness and funds for Making Changes Association, who provides hundreds and hundreds of women with functional and appropriate work wardrobes each year. Their clients are all making the effort to re-enter the workforce, and perhaps have few resources to do so.

Making Changes programs include guidance on writing resumes, and networking to gain employment, to those who perhaps may never have had to provide these qualifications before.

The wardrobes that are provided are all donated, recycled, reused, and up-cycled from high quality garments that are either brand new or gently used, giving the garments a new life as well.

So although, EHC teaches the skills to create brand new custom couture made garments, we support, believe in what and how Making Changes not only uses perfectly good clothing as their main program resource, but

More importantly, we support and share their values in how they treat women and teens struggling to improve their life situations, by treating them like family. Almost all of the day to day operations are handled by wonderful volunteers who have time and expertise to share.

You are invited, to attend this event! Just click on ‘buy tickets‘, and join us in supporting this wonderful organization.
Ecole Holt Couture School will also have a booth at the event if you would like to know more about us, and become part of this wonderful highly skilled, hand-made and crafted market!

If you can’t start the video, please copy and paste the URL into your preferred browser! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phgn-NzI-Ls
Enjoy and see you at the event on Sunday November 16th! – cheers J.

To get ahead you need to get started.

 

Slow fashion – its your prerogative!

To be happily successful in couture and tailoring you must become a master maker and this takes time as does developing your clientele. Gaining sufficient experience and always paying a great deal of attention to detail, wherein no element is compromised in a garment’s making, cannot be learned in a fast-track approach to learning, which is the reason why EHC’s programs are longer than typical career college programs.

Because the essence of couture and tailoring is to create a masterpiece every time, as with fine art, it is through making a multitude of discriminating choices. Understanding the intricacies of construction techniques and their application complexities is cultivated by experience. Pushing beyond your current level of creativity needs time to mature. In couture and tailoring a single garment is made to fit the client’s exacting requirements and style. As with an original work of art, cannot not be reproduced on mass and would defeat the whole purpose. In Couture and Tailoring, no garment is made on speculation; but by prearranged sale or by agreement.

Financial success at any level is basically what is left over after expenses and other related costs. In creating one item whatever profit is attained very quickly, which could either be acceptable or unacceptable. It is noteworthy to point out artists and artisans have a reputation for disliking putting themselves forward selling their expertise and generally do better in complementary business arrangements wherein they can entrust some time-consuming marketing duties into the hands of someone else. However, handing over this kind of content control to someone else is not easy – finding someone who understands your vision and can speak in your voice – is exceptional.

If profit margins turnout to be lower for ‘makers’, meaning artists, artisans, and crafts people the compensation is greater in career satisfaction (or high job satisfaction). We also have somewhat longer careers than usual, working well beyond retirement age because we love to be creative and productive at any age. To be a successful maker the secret is in being authentic. Staying creatively involved, having control over our work, maintaining high work ethics, keeping our natural and business environments healthy and sustaining our emotional and spiritual wellbeing is essential to and naturally high on our priority list in life.

A word about sustainability – defined as genuine attitudes and practices rather than ‘green-washed’ attempts or hyped up pitches to create an illusion of sustainability. More and more influential people in the industry are supporting what is called ‘slow fashion’, a term coined by Kate Fletcher (Centre for Sustainable Fashion, UK, 2007). The core of a movement dedicated to righteous ways of being fashionable. Slow fashion encompasses all initiatives taken towards using bio-degradable raw materials, recycled garments, buying from fair-trade organization and promoting slow consumption.

We all have choices, and no one way is right for everyone. But, being able to make conscious and informed choices shouldn’t be drudgery, it is a luxury, it should be our prerogative. This may also appeal to you! Cheers! J.

 

Creating is exciting, mastering is satisfying.

I love and need to do something creative with my hands, whether playing the piano, sewing, cooking, gardening, sketching or doodling. Using my hands and engaging my mind are perfect partners for what I do in couture sewing and bespoke tailoring. I’m never satisfied with good enough, I strive for perfection every time. And, learning continues long after you master the fundamental skills and techniques. Couture and tailoring as a career has never become dry and continues to evolve.

In fashion making, including alterations, businesses surveyed (2012) – 56% required expert hand sewing skills, 33% custom pattern making skills, 89% custom fitting skills, 56% customer service skills, 33% required design and styling skills, and only 22% need machinist skills. Clearly, machinist skills at the bottom of the list.

Wow, a whopping 89% could really use expertise in custom fitting skills!

It doesn’t help, I think,  that many young people are misinformed about the business of professional couture sewing. As a result are reluctant to get into a field of fashion design that they think is just monotonous and slavishly laborious such as seen in those factories exposed recently in overseas countries.  In fact, couture sewing and tailoring is really very creative and fulfilling. True, the hours are sometimes long, but each piece that you work on is different from the last, unlike production work.

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Glamour and sex appeal is continually portrayed in fashion media and gives a false impression of the reality of working in fashion. Fashion is exciting, but true career satisfaction from comes from within and from the recognition of a job well done, along with the financial rewards. And while haute couture appears quite sensational on the surface, it is just like any business that requires education, experience, dedication and investment to be successful. Did I forget to say, you need ‘Passion’.

If you are anything like me, you get excited about creating things yourself, find peace and tranquillity in stillness and quiet concentration, thrive on a balance of keeping your own company and sharing quality time with other creative people and have an eye for detail and beauty. Often I become inspired and find myself lost in imagination. You see a need and know deep down that you can succeed at something that you really love doing.

One of the most rewarding times is when you reach the stage in your career, when you no longer question your abilities or skills. When you know that even when you haven’t done something before, you can figure it out! Excitement builds within me with every new project, especially the challenging ones, and then to see the joy your clients express when they get what they dream about.

…working on a wedding gown early in my career…

To see other people awaken to their passion, is always a thrill as an educator. Doing what I do is the cake, doing what I love doing is the icing on the cake. Sharing what I’ve learned is the eating of the cake. – J.

Pattern cutter, maker, engineer

 

Artist-hand-mind-maker

Creative expression your living heritage

 

Artist: Hand-Mind-Heart Maker

“He who works with his hands is a laborer.

He who works with his hands and his head, is a craftsman.

He who works with his hands and his head and his heart, is an ARTIST”.

– St. Francis of Assisi  ***

As an Artisan, your personal philosophy and way of making a living, and everything you do makes you and how you do it totally unique.

Professional high or ‘haute’ couture and bespoke tailoring are careers more akin to siblings than to cousins, both are born from the same roots, require years of training and experience, are extremely creative, hand-mind skills based, and are clientele specific, but neither profession is given much attention within the fashion industry, or the crafts or arts disciplines, which makes it extremely difficult to find statistics on, or to find applicable practical business marketing plans for and both are very difficult to find training facilities or mentors for.

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada lists these collective industry skills separately under several reference NOC headings: Couturier, Fashion designer 5243,  Tailor, Dressmaker, Furrier, Milliner 6342, Artisan and Craftsperson 5244, and Patternmakers textiles, leather and fur 5245, Theatre, fashion, exhibit and other creative designers 5243, Inspectors and graders, textile, fabric, fur and leather products manufacturing 9447 (listed under ‘fitters’). Each of these descriptions combined covers much of what couturiers and tailors do as self-employed and small business owners, but they also actively manage their independent business. HRSD says the National Occupation Classification should be updated next by 2016.

Couturiers and Tailors serve a ‘niche market’, a focused, targetable portion of a market addressing a need for a product or service that is not being addressed by mainstream providers. Marketing activity is perhaps more important for niche market businesses than for any other kind, because the niche market business is by definition, unknown and succeeds or fails on making the connection with exactly the right kind of customer/client, and today couturiers and tailors need to devote time to marketing as well as their craft.

They are of the few highly skilled disciplines in the fashion garment industry which still is and always will be a ‘time consuming creative mind-hand making process’or what the industry generally terms ‘labour intensive’. Let’s be clear about when technology becomes involved, it is for the specific purpose of speeding up very mundane repetitive tasks that does not detract from the final outcome (consider an electrical steam iron or sewing machine as technology versus tools of the trade being primarily your hands, and scissors, needles etc.). Extremely useful technology tools useful for today are the computer, the internet and social media.

However, humans will never be separated from and always will do the more interesting tasks in any discipline or industry, no matter how much mechanisation and technology has replaced mundane labour to speed up processes – they will never replace the work only humans can and love to do. This includes making contacts and the very special aspect of personal service.

Couture and bespoke tailoring entail the continuous assessment of the best approach and technique to use to attain the creative vision of the maker using a great variety of fabrics, colours, textures, layering of materials, draping effects, pleating, easing, structuring, detailing, to make a perfectly fitting unique and lasting garment, and every piece is different.

Decisions are not each dictated by miniscule savings on the unit cost of materials, quickest methods, or worse yet – shortcuts, as they are in manufacturing where profit margins only become lucrative in the thousands of units sold.  In couture and tailoring the fabrics and the methods, must each serve and protect the design, the client, and ultimately the environment (natural and economical).

Personal inventiveness and creative exploration are often the most distinguishing features of successful crafts practitioners. Career craftspeople constantly “play” with ideas, materials or processes, forms, images, functions, even markets, and indulge in a path of life-long learning.

How you think about your world, your philosophy, your way of being and living is expressed in how you do your work, and in everything you do – which makes what you do totally unique – and there is nothing ambiguous or vague about the garments couturiers and tailors create.

Some craftspeople talk about the meditative or entrancing aspect of their work and how important that is to them. Most importantly, they love being part of a world that explores the meaning and values of society. Creativity, originality and distinctiveness are probably the most important long term factors in developing a successful couture and tailoring career. This concept of individuality is the root of both personal satisfaction and market recognition — whatever and wherever those might be.

***Quote share thanks to Sunil Joshi

Ecole Holt Couture Fashion Event Fundraiser- “ONE”

 

Successful Couturier: Lottery or Strategy

What every parent naturally worries about is when (or whether) financing their children’s education will pay off. What students worry about is which field of study they would like to pursue, what they would be good at doing and just how on earth to achieve it. A person’s passion usually indicates their talent and no matter what the obstacle is the driving force of their career choice.

Formal education of any kind is never wasted, however can be more or less productive. As education goes, the process of learning or learning how to learn makes it interesting and the secret to overcoming challenges. It follows the quality of instruction, relevance to one’s ambitions and goals, and not lastly the authoritative resource from which the training comes.

If you ask anyone who intensely enjoys their career they will tell you they never ‘work’ a day in their lives – it is admittedly challenging, sometimes an uphill battle, and sometimes makes you plain crazy; but it is always interesting, always evolving, and immensely fulfilling. If you ask the Founder of EHC, still creative in her 71 years career, it is because of her passion for Couture. But what about the financial returns or rewards?

As a commodity money makes the economy pulsate, puts food on the table, pays the rent and in fact all our bills. EVERYONE needs it but, ‘how much’ money is totally subjective. For example (2011 stats) in Calgary, starting out a single person earning $36,000.00 per year could rent a 1-bedroom apartment and live comfortably. What your short and long term goals are or how long it would take to financially ‘break even’ in your career: meaning how much you would need to live on [not going further into debt]  until you turn a profit, is so specific to each individual and depends on a thousand and one variables.

To put some perspective on it, graduates of medicine frequently take 20 years to pay off student loans, while graduates of other disciplines, perhaps only 5 years while working in their chosen professions.  If you are going into self-employment or working at home, you’ll also need to include some initial investment – that may be a very small amount compared with operating a boutique [small business].

A working design professional could reasonably expect to reach their ‘break even’ point and take-in profits in as little as 5 years, but 10 years are not uncommon.

There is a saying that if you work hard the money will follow – which as we all know isn’t the whole story – and frustration sets in because of the inability to change something, insufficient skills or experience, lack of knowledge or lack of opportunity. Take the time to develop your own business plan at the beginning of your career – this will help you plot your particular route, and to adjust it accordingly. This, by the way, is beneficial for everyone starting out in business (aka employment) not just for up and coming fashion industry entrepreneurs.

To attain and retain job satisfaction make ‘life-long learning’ your mantra, soak up information like a sponge daily, be adaptable in new situations, be perceptive and determined, and importantly continue to nurture your passion, cultivate a healthy support system of family and true friends. Tip to career longevity:  it is an epic part but not the entire part of your life.

How gratified and financially secure you become in your chosen career depends on good education,  practicing high work ethics, maintaining a good reputation, and the continual search for access to new resources, all balanced adds up to positive indicators of long term job satisfaction and increasing  financial growth potential. For professional artisans in the business of Couture and Design this is no exception. There are no glamorous short-cuts. So don’t rely on winning Lotto Max as your financial plan.

Coco Chanel in her Studio

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paris as your City of Choice? - photo by Sheldon Levine

Calgary as your City of Choice? - photo by MAX