I’m starting a new tutorial series which I think of as “pimp my style”. It bares a pale comparison to the TV show. The premise of the series is to take a product produced by a DE (designer-entrepreneur) and to move it up a level with regard to structural design. I won’t be changing the look of the item itself. All I’ll be concerned with is mostly production related challenges. The criteria for improvement will be style management, tracking (e.g. style numbers), pattern accuracy and efficiency with the goal of lowered costs, less ambiguity, improved construction and a higher quality product.

This series inaugurates with Andrea who’s submitted a hand bag pattern for consideration. Please limit your critiques to the issues at hand as opposed to any styling considerations because everyone’s taste is different. Thanks to Andrea for agreeing to be our first guinea pig. Later today, I’ll be posting Andrea’s pattern once I’ve got it nailed into a format which everyone can print. If you’re a whiz with pdf printing, you can download the file (1.6MB) as it exists now.

Similarly, if you have a product or product idea of which you’d like for me to kick the tires in the future, do sing out.