By Sarah Montague
The classrooms in the Parson’s building at 2 W. 13th Street, and those allocated to Parsons courses in the University Center, make their functions clear. They are large, often with long work tables and stools. And they have a messy vitality that the bland and generic rooms at the Eugene Lang building between 11th and 12th Street cannot match. In short, they are about making.
So I was not surprised to find the classroom for Lesley Ware’s Integrated Sewing class populated by dress dummies and its long worktables covered in fabric. Her eight students were working on their final projects, quietly smoothing their patterns, measuring, and draping.
Ware’s presence at the New School was part of a career pivot. Her undergraduate degree was in Education and she has a Master’s in public administration. She spent the first ten years of her professional life working for non-profits.
“And then I switched over to fashion.” Where she sees her role as helping the next generation, a mission that includes five published books– Sew Fab: Sewing and Style for Young Fashionistas, My Fab Fashion Style File, How to Be a Fashion Designer, 101 Ways to Love Your Style, and Black Girls Sew. And of course, her work at Parsons.
In a way that seems almost old-fashioned, Ware was exposed to sewing at a young age: “My Mom used to sew all of my clothing, all of my Halloween costumes, Easter dresses. So my first memories are of picking out materials, and buttons, and helping my Mom do the running stitch.”
In contrast to the many environments being invaded by AI, this class is “very much hands-on,” says Ware. She thinks that sewing is becoming increasingly popular because of shows like Project Runway and social media influencers who use their platforms to make things. “I think sewing today is more about using what already exists, and upcycling—taking things you already have in your closet and giving them a new life. I think this generation of sewers is more interested in the environment and having a connection to the way their clothing is manufactured.”
To add a sustainability dimension to the class, Ware brings in designers who are working in this space to lecture, and takes her students on tours of their studios.
But today, two weeks before the end of term, it’s all about making. Two weeks earlier, Ware took her students to Materials for the Arts, a well-known non-profit that offers students and teachers access to all kinds of materials, for all kinds of purposes. Each student sourced fabric/s for their final projects. The assignment was to create a “Universal Design” garment (one that can be used by a wide range of people with varying abilities and disabilities without any alternations being necessary.)
After chatting with Ware, I make a circuit around the room to talk with the students.
Colin Levine is making a skirt that can also double as a shawl. I mention the “Hoover apron” a dual-purpose apron for housewives conceived of by the famously thrifty Herbert Hoover during his Depression-era Presidency. Colin’s fabric is dense and weighty like a pelt, but less heavy than an earlier choice he rejected. He’s laying out his pattern, the familiar paper mock-up of the eventual garment. This is a process it’s impossible to imagine being controlled by a bot.
Ally Jack is making a handbag that might convert into a hat; they’ve also just finished altering a pair of denim pants by adding lace panels, so they’ll be cooler and roomier for summer. Not apparently, without a struggle. “I have my own sewing machine at home and she hates me.” I offer up the slogan of the parodic philosophical movement Resistentialism, “Les choses sont contre nous” (“the things they are against us.”)
Aanya Mayor introduces me to the one of the electronic sewing machines, a brand called the Juki Straight Stitch. (Speaking of “les chose sont contre nous,” I have always been intimidated by sewing machines. If I had one, it would hate me. Anya is making a skirt, and this class was her first experience with a sewing machine. She didn’t find it challenging, and says “I haven’t the patience to sew by hand.” These machines are industrial strength—Anya shows me a fingerless glove she made earlier in the semester; it’s meaty fabric no challenge to the Juki.
Aanya’s choice of fabric for the skirt is a luminous orangey shade, and feels like gabardine. She’s not sure of her professional path yet, but says she wants to experiment and “do it my own way.” I say that most of the best ideas start that way.
Ian Nicastro is taking Ware’s repurposing principles to heart. He’s reworking an old pair of trousers to make a new skirt. “Fashion is so accessible now; people are really interested in using old fabric and old garments rather than buying yards of fabric from the garment district. I think people are much more interested in sustainability these days.” Ian had done some hand sewing before, but the class helped him learning machine sewing. He has a machine at home now. It’s in need of repair, but he doesn’t think it hates him.
Next, Natalie Peter, with a really intriguing dual purpose concept. “I’m making a picnic blanket/skirt.” I point out that an attempt to turn the skirt into a blanket on the spur of the moment might result in an arrest for indecent exposure. She has an answer for that: “The idea is that you’d be wearing, like shorts. So, yeah, it’s like for when you’re walking and you spontaneously want to sit in grass or something.” This seemed improbable on the sulky April day when I visited the class, but now that we’re nearly in June it has merit. The inside panel of Natalie’s hybrid Is a kind of mustard (“I thought it would look nice next to the grass”) and she planned to use a brown fabric for the side that goes on the ground, so that potential grass stains wouldn’t be as visible.
When I asked Natalie if she’s sewn before, her answer struck a chord: “I’m quite short, so I have to hem a lot of my clothes, or alter them; and when I was young I got a lot of hand me downs (that vital sartorial pipeline for large families.” This was my problem too, before the advent of petite lines. I mention Jean Muir, a ground-breaking British designer in the 1960s. She fashioned the first line of clothes for smaller women because she often found herself having to buy children’s clothes.
She’s a Global Studies major, and says “This class has been fun because it’s nice to get a break from more—brainy—subject matter and do something tactile with your hands.”
Skylar Hinkley is making a top and a bag out of various different lengths of Jersey. She’s another veteran sewer who’s been machine sewing since middle school but she stopped in order to pursue classes in support of her Photography major. “It’s been nice to get back.”
I step back for a moment to appreciate the mise en scene. One student is ironing his fabric to his pattern; one is draping her fabric on herself; the component parts of the various projects are now separate, so looked at from a distance, among the pale industrial tables and the dress dummies, the classroom looks like a de Chirico painting.
This type of work is both results oriented, and a little existential. When does material become more than itself? And what challenges do you place before the students to bring out that combination of problem solving and creativity?
I’ve been teaching a fashion-oriented course myself this semester, and marveled at all the ways we use and enact this word. “To fashion” is to make, but “fashion” is a fluid concept that defines a dominate look, or culture, or system. It can beautify and uglify, it can be exalting, and pernicious.
In the sewing class, it was nice to get back to first principles. Material has qualities, but not meaning, until that is imposed by a design, until, like a poet with a collection of words, the creator pulls it into the world.