Last year, recruiting consultant Fiona Tham wore a qipao to her partner's annual company dinner - hardly surprising for the Shanghai-themed soiree. But the qipao was an original Tham creation, the feather in her cap, having attended dressmaking classes since September 2011.

Dressmaking, once the domain of stern seamstresses or housewives fallen on hard times, is enjoying something of a renaissance here among working women.

Ms Tham, 42, started taking classes at Choa Chu Kang Community Club after toying with the idea for a decade. Since then, she has made herself 23 blouses, nine dresses, four pairs of shorts, four tote bags and a handbag. Learning to sew, she says, has equipped her with "very useful life skills".

She says: "I no longer send my clothes to be altered at shops and I'm constantly learning new techniques with every new design I make." She also wears her creations very often, receiving compliments, and has lately been thinking of a change in career: to be a fashion merchandiser or buyer.

One dressmaker who has made the leap from hobbyist to entrepreneur is Singaporean fashion designer Dorothy Loh, 38.

While working at a bank in 2004, she began taking dressmaking classes at the now-defunct Kadomay Dress-Making and Fashion Design Training Centre in Eu Tong Sen Street. A year later, she quit her job and pursued a full-time fashion design course at Raffles Design Institute.

In 2006, she started a womenswear line called Dotted Line, featuring office wear for working women. She also began a line of nursing wear under the label Dote in 2008. In 2009, she closed Dotted Line to focus on Dote.

Dressmaking, she says, was a stepping stone that allowed her to hone her skills and confidence to design her own fashion line.

She says: "I've always been interested in fashion and the creative arts, and I thought I'd take the plunge and do it while I was still able to. I wanted to learn pattern-making and sewing. These classes helped me achieve that aim."

Accounts executive Serene Tan has been taking dressmaking classes at Ang Mo Kio Community Centre since late last year.

Says Ms Tan, 29: "The classes allow me to create something special to wear. Most of my friends are able to tell straight away whether I am wearing my own creations because the things I make are my own style."

Dressmaking schools and freelance instructors here say there has been a rise in enrolment numbers and students are mostly women.

At independent dressmaking school AStitch- Works Concepts, lead trainer Jumiah Ujud, 53, who uses the professional name Juneiyana, says that enrolment in her private classes has more than doubled in the past three years.

In 2011, she used to teach 67 students a week.

Since the beginning of this year, she has been teaching close to 180 students across elementary, intermediate and advanced levels.

Alisha Fashion and Dressmaking School, established in 1991, had about 30 regular students for its six-month-long courses. Along the way, it introduced part-time courses to accommodate the working crowd. It now has 12 full-time students and about 50 part-time students a month.

The school is run by two sisters, Kala, 46, and Kamala Basaran, 54. They say many of their students are women who work in the day and take classes in their spare time, usually to equip themselves with skills so they can save money on alterations or to earn extra income by making clothes to sell.

The fees for these courses range from $60 for a 10-session course at a community centre to $1,500 for 100 hours of lessons at a dressmaking school.

Students come out of these dressmaking classes with practical new skills as well as new clothes and accessories made for a fraction of what similar store-bought items would cost.

While a typical dress at a high street store costs upwards of $80, fabric to make a simple similar design can cost an average of just $30.

And then there is the brag factor of being able to tell friends that the dress one is wearing is the result of one's creativity.

Madam Lim Gim Foo, 64, has been teaching dressmaking at Ang Mo Kio Community Centre since 1982. She sets her students targets that they must complete by the end of each eight-lesson cycle. For example, elementary class students must sew three wearable skirts by the end of the course.

The idea of dressmaking being a slow or tedious hobby for just the older generation is fast becoming a dated concept.

Dote designer Loh says: "Over the past years, crafting has experienced a revival of sorts. You see sites such as Etsy which support the handmade movement.

"Sewing is no longer just something your grandma used to do. It's now hip to make things for yourself, including dresses."

sarahsim@sph.com.sg

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