Working with your Hands

You learn a craft by doing. It is a skill where your hands perform what is happening in your head and heart in a way that is only possible if your hands are trained. If they have gained experience in hundreds of hours of labor with the help of a master, who shares all his or her secrets with you.

The transfer of this practical knowledge is the foundation of the Dutch Couture Academy. While following an (online) course, you learn from practice and you are encouraged to spend time refining your manual skills, automating actions by ‘making kilometres’.

That’s something no one else can do for you. You do not learn a craft from a book, but in the practice of working with it.

Savoir Faire

The French have a fancy term for this: SAVOIR FAIRE (know how to do it). Savoir Faire is synonymous with valuable in France. It has status. A status that we do not (yet) know in the Netherlands. 

Today I came across the video below from CHANEL, which shows this so beautifully:

You learn craft by doing

There are many crafts in fashion. Crafts that are transferred from one to another in the studio. Couture craftsmanship is expressed in the form Pleating as well as embroidery , for example. There is no quick fix for learning a craft. It takes time. And trouble. 

But if you are willing to put in this time and effort, the result will bring immense joy and satisfaction! If beautiful, artisanal pieces of couture make your heart beat faster, then go for it! Really, you can start very small.

With the choice that this is what you want!

Which craft appeals to you in particular? And why? Leave a comment below this blog post. I’m curious!