Career of a fashion victim!

After my apprenticeship as a master tailor in a parental studio, I studied fashion design in Trier for 8 semesters. I financed my studies with tailor-made garments in my own studio, by alteration men's clothing in local menswear stores and through quality control / final inspection for manufacturing facilities that existed in Trier at the time.

After a short interlude with Lutz Teutloff in Bielefeld, I developed the ladies' pants for elkont europe in Gunzenhausen. Four seamstresses sewed pants, jackets and overalls to my pattern.

At the company LA VIE in Cologne I was then responsible as a pattern designer / product manager for the entire development of women's pants and jackets. The prototypes were made by home sewing in Cologne and surrounding area, production took place in Turkey. After a few successful years, it was time to become self-employed as a freelance designer! First of all, I advised DOB companies in the Cologne / Dusseldorf region on the design, pattern development and seew prototypes and garments by well-known home seewers.

Through the Herren-Mode-Woche, the world's largest men's fair, the German Institute for Men's Fashion (DIH) in Cologne and the HAKA Association, to which I had friendly contacts, I have decided to develop exclusively men's fashion. One of my longtime clients was BAWI in Wilhelmshaven. There I developed the collections for Mario Barutti and Masterhand as a freelance designer/pattern designer with the product manager. For the company "ENKA" in Wuppertal I developed for the part "classic HaKa" as part of their advertising events AKZO-FASHION-TRAIN trendy men's collections, which received worldwide attention. For the International Wool Secretariat IWS and the DIH, I have also developed collections for the seasonal trend shows on behalf of BAWI.

As a freelance designer / pattern developer, after a few years of successful work, I realized that I could no longer work with pencil, ruler, and cardboard with conventional pattern development. With a heavy heart, I gave up my self-employment and found an employer that enabled me to use the CAD system. The head of the pattern department of my new employer CANDA International (C & A) developed the pattern by

hand. My job was to develop the first pattern on the PC, create the grading, and submit it to the CAD department. There only the cutting plans were laid. At that time there was still a suits production in Mettingen with about 1200 employees, and I had the opportunity to test my prototypes and processing techniques.

After a few years, I faced a new challenge that included not only the development of the pattern, but also the development of the collection.

When I joined Heinecke & Klaproth, a specialist in stretch pants and stretch suits for men, I found an empty CAD system, which I fed in a short time with new production-ready pants models. Everything is built in block pattern and prepared for in-house production. After a few weeks, the collection was expanded with suits, which were developed and produced under my supervision at OP, a large production facility in the Czech Republic.

The next challenge, which I faced after several years of successful work, was head of the pattern department of the SCABAL group and head of the pattern department / CAD of the Tailor Hoff GmbH in Saarbrücken; a high quality, tailor-made luxury class. My job was at the subsidiary Tailor Hoff GmbH in Saarbrücken. Every day, 120 bespoke suits made from SCABAL's finest fabrics were produced there. My job was to reorganize the sample department, develop block patterns and fine-tune processing to production. In close collaboration with the production manager, I developed, among other things, the working methods for the fused, semi-traditional and traditional cabvas, which are tailored to a rational, tailor-made industrial production! The conversion of production to handmade loose canvas with the help of Italian technicians under Italian production management fell victim to the German model maker!

Fortunately, the company Kuhn-Maßkonfektion was of the opinion that their garments need a facelift. Within two years, I modified the hole pattern, developed new men's and women's block pattern, optimized the alterations. I developed the process to manufacture custom DOB and HaKa garments in the factories.

Now it was time to market my years of experience as a designer / pattern developer and manufacturing expert as a freelancer!