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Let’s face it - regardless of age, gender, or lifestyle, bags are an essential accessory in your everyday life. Besides being a stylish complement to your outfit, they’re also highly functional, allowing you to bring essential items as you go about your day. Most people may think that good-quality and stylish bags are made in factories fronted by designer brands, but the reality is: anyone can make their own high quality bag! All you need is a sewing machine, bag fabric, and your very own design! Before you enrol yourself in a bag programme, here are 5 tips to get you started on your bag-making journey.
Even though having something beautiful is often an important factor for most, it is also imperative that you come up with a design that is functional and comfortable. Some useful questions you can ask yourself before starting your design process are: “What will you be using this bag for?” and “What are the items you intend to store in it?”
The material used to make a bag can either make or break the bag, not just in terms of its appearance, but also its usage. One important factor to take note of when it comes to choosing the fabric is to ensure that it is sturdy and durable enough to hold the entire structure of the bag, as well as your belongings. The more frequently used materials for bag making are canvas, leather, faux leather, and sometimes, cotton.
Learn about leathermaking here.
A prototype refers to a simple, experimental model to test or validate ideas and design assumptions. Prototypes can take on many forms, however, you need to ensure that it doesn’t just include sketches; your prototypes have to be tangible forms of your design ideas. Through prototyping, you can make appropriate refinements or changes to ensure the functionality and style of the end-product. For bag makers, prototyping does not just include tweaking the patterns to get the style and shape right, it is also a great time to make sure that all your belongings are able to fit into the prototype.
If you are an advocate for sustainability, here is some good news for you! Prototyping is no longer restricted to physicality - which means, less material wastage. With the pandemic propelling the Fashion industry into the virtual realm, virtual prototyping is now the in-thing that is highly demanded in the Fashion industry. With 3D prototyping softwares such as CLO-3D, individuals can now create a real-to-life model of their designs before production.
You may be interested in: Virtual Prototyping for Bags
Pattern making is the foundation for your end-product and the technical drawing or drafting of your bag. In design schools, the measurements taken from standard size charts are converted into 2D patterns before the final product is cut out from them. More often than not, pattern making happens concurrently with prototyping, as you refine and improve each design. Many design courses or bag making courses will make use of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software to finalise the lines, add stitches and components with greater accuracy, or even adding texture and material details.
You may be interested in: Diploma in Bag Design or Digital Sketching for Bags
When it comes to the creation stage, it is essential to have the right tools and machinery. For example, a fabric sewing machine is ideal for making a cotton tote but not a leather one. As you sew your bag, it’s ideal to jot down design notes such as the order in which the pieces are sewn together, or how long the glue takes to dry, etc. as this helps you to improve your craft the next time you make a bag. The good news is, TaF.tc offers industry-standard machinery in our bags-making lab in Thye Hong Centre, so you do not need to worry about the various tools and machinery required!
Bag making is not just about creating patterns and sewing, it is also about learning technical skills like cutting, bonding, and understanding the individual components of different bag styles and designs. For bag enthusiasts, the Textile and Fashion Industry Training Centre offers a Diploma in Bag Design where you can learn all the important industrial skills to create different types of leather bags from scratch in just 3.5 months. They also offer a number of short leather and bag making courses to empower students with the skills they need to build their custom bags.
Enrol yourself in the Textile And Fashion Industry Training Centre for their bag making courses and learn more about how you can create your very own bags.
