Testimonials

As a professional in the fashion industry working for Gap, Inc., I found the knowledge I gained at Apparel Arts to be quite comprehensive. It helped me to fine-tune my patternmaking skills and eventually get promoted to a senior supervisory level in my career. I can’t thank Suzy enough for sharing this invaluable information with me so I could move forward in my career.

-Susan McIntyre, Senior Product Technician, The Gap, Inc. or Susan McIntyre, Technical Design Manager, Putumayo Clothing Co.

After designing and manufacturing clothes for eighteen years, I went to Apparel Arts thinking to hone my skills.

I learned much more with this course. Now I can respond to a new fabric not with fear, but with ideas, with the intrigue of playing with it, manipulating it, then making a pattern to accommodate the drape, hand, texture, and stretch of the new fabric.

Suzy’s method and text are a joy, not intimidating to a visual person, a step-by-step, easy way to learn to design without limits.

-Giselle Shepatin, Giselle Shepatin Designs

After decades of depending on commercial patterns, the Apparel Arts program opened a whole new world of designing and sewing to me. I can now translate any picture of a ready-made garment into a pattern that fits perfectly.

-Barbara Allen, Sewing instructor

Clear, complete, comprehensive. That’s the best way to describe the patternmaking course at Apparel Arts. I have tried many methods, but this one gives me consistently good results no matter the body type or style.

-Sharon Blair
Faculty, Apparel Design
Art Institute of Portland
Studio SKB

The pattern drafting method I learned at Apparel Arts taught me how to design any clothing style to fit me or anyone else. With different fabrics, I can design with my imagination as my only limitation. I have been sewing almost my entire life, but only now do I feel that I can complete a garment that is truly exactly what I want.

-Susan Yee, Former Student

The patternmaking knowledge I gained at Apparel Arts is fantastic. It gave me the foundation I needed to launch an independent pattern company, Go Patterns, with a fellow Apparel Arts graduate Allison Page.

-Madeline Rogers, Go Patterns

Apparel Arts gave me a fundamental education of the concepts needed to create clothing from design to production. Understanding this process has been essential to my success in the fashion industry and in starting my apparel company, black label san francisco.

-Rita Dilorenzo, Black Label, San Francisco

Apparel Arts’ patternmaking methods are accurate and comprehensive. With thecombination of easy to follow steps and technical sketches, her book is a valuable resource that I reference regularly.

-Michele Janezic, Apparel Manufacturer Janezic

I took the program from Suzy Furrer in 1998. The knowledge I gained has been invaluable in furthering my goals in my career, from creating couture garments for private clients, teaching fitting, patternmaking and tailoring classes, to writing articles for Threads magazine, and to starting a company, Go Patterns, a commercial pattern company.

The depth and breadth of knowledge that Suzy Furrer possesses is amazing and inspiring and I’m so excited she has decided to share it with the world. I work with this information regularly and truly feel that the information provided will give you the knowledge, skills and confidence to truly be able to craft the garments of your dreams.

-Allison Page
Go Patterns!