Growing and sustaining creative pattern cutting as a recognised profession in Asia

Recent years have shown a gradual shift in apparel production from China to parts of Southeast Asia, allowing fashion designers to leverage lower labour costs and raw material resources during sampling and production. These cost-saving benefits have impacted the overall perception of quality, as designers frustratingly come to realise the poor levels of skills and pattern cutting knowledge within the region. The current challenges portray the existence of a regional gap in manpower for well-trained pattern cutters to support the designers wishing to produce their collections in Southeast Asia. One such response to this demand is recognised in the current trend of universities offering courses and programmes in creative pattern cutting. Pattern cutting is traditionally seen as a secondary by-product of the fashion design discipline, rather than its own professional career pathway. Against the Asian context, pattern cutting is considered a vocational operation that requires very little formal education. However, the introduction of creative pattern cutting as a specialism within tertiary design education is beginning to challenge existing misconceptions and reshape the role of pattern cutting as an extension of fashion design. This paper aims to review the current value of highly skilled creative pattern cutters in Southeast Asia through discussions of educational support and potential production capabilities within the region.