How we work: The Pattern Room
Bazeley works behind the scenes as our Senior Pattern Cutter. We caught up with him to talk more about his technical skills, how we work and his home-from-home, the Pattern Room. That’s where the AllSaints collective of ideas come to life so that they can begin their journey to our customer’s wardrobes.
"Once a style is draped on a mannequin and marked up, the time comes to take that pattern and transfer it into our CAD system. This is so it can be amended and sent to the factory to be made. You may have always wanted to know - how does that work?
We have two methods to achieve this in the Pattern Room. The digitiser is a large adjustable workstation, also known as the Silhouette Table. Our paper or fabric pattern pieces are placed under a thick plastic sheet to hold them flat in place. We then work our way around the piece using a beeping device called a delimiter, which is similar to a mouse or electronic compass. The user enters specific codes on it to indicate particular aspects of the pattern, such as a corner or notch placement. Working around each piece individually within the pattern, we define points, that add up to create lines, which in turn add up to make a digital copy of the pattern.”
The other method is inputting patterns via the Accuscan program, allowing our team to digitise multiple pattern pieces at once using just a photograph.
“The pieces are put on a board containing circular markers that help define scale and positioning. The photo is taken on a regular digital camera, and the image runs through the rendering software. It turns the physical pieces on the board into digital patterns we can then manipulate with the rest of the Accumark software. There are a few variables to consider when using Accuscan, such as threshold and lighting, but this method is very efficient for styles that contain lots of pattern pieces.”
You’ll find both of these techniques being used in The Pattern Room – they’re invaluable to our Technical Team’s work and help us keep a record of every single style that is made. Without these tools and our people, we wouldn’t be able to send our work across the world to our carefully chosen factories for mass production.
Interested to find out more about Bazeley and his role? Visit his profile here. See yourself working alongside him? Search our roles today.