Founded in 2015 by Kath Goodwin, MAKE Cambridge Fashion School offers fashion and textiles classes for children, teenagers and adults. It’s based at The Cambridge Fabric Company on Peas Hill in the city centre, a shop brimming with beautiful fabrics, trimmings and sewing paraphernalia that I just can’t walk past without popping in!
The teaching area downstairs is a relaxed environment where no kit or prior experience is needed and students of all ages can master design and sewing skills.
Kath set up MAKE after a long career in the fashion industry. At the age of 9, she knew she wanted to be a fashion designer and indeed, can’t remember a time when she didn’t sew, learning the skills from her mother and grandmother seemingly by osmosis as she grew up.
After art college and fashion design studies, Kath worked her way up in the industry, learning the ropes as a Design Assistant at Coates and, following a move to Cambridge for love, setting up her own collection “Pure Design Studio” with help from the Prince’s Youth Business Trust. Her label’s clubbing and rave fashion sold well here and in Japan. Sponsored by the Fashion Council, Kath showed at London Fashion Week as a next generation designer before continuing her career with retailers including Top Shop, Tesco (she was in the design team that set up the F&F label), House of Fraser and Arcadia. Travelling all over the world for work was exciting but by now, Kath had a young family which led her to rethink her work/life balance.
Kath has always loved to teach. She’d enjoyed working with students on industry placements and internships and had also taught part time on the Fashion and Textiles Diploma at Cambridge Regional College. She wanted to teach in a holistic way, with students learning how to design, measure, cut a pattern, select fabric and sew their own clothes, creating a piece that is totally bespoke to them. So Kath set up MAKE on a shoestring, starting with after school classes for children that were full from the start, just by word of mouth and the magic of Facebook.
Three years on, Kath has expanded the range of courses, taken on more teachers and launched a new timetable of fashion and textiles classes for children, teens and adults, with a mixture of daytime and after school term time slots. More workshops are being planned, including making children’s clothes, screen printing T shirts and upcycling vintage clothes. And you can book MAKE for your hen party, baby shower or children’s party (from 8 years old) plus Kath offers bespoke courses for companies or groups in and around Cambridge.
So whether you’re wanting to design and make your own clothes, create beautiful soft furnishings for your home or give your kids the sewing skills that just aren’t taught in school any more, check out MAKE’s Facebook page for up to date course news and email Kath to ask about availability of spaces.
Facebook: @makecambridgefashionschool
Email info@makecambridge.co.uk
The Cambridge Fabric Company, 7 Peas Hill, Cambridge CB2 3PP
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