If you’d told me I was a “creative person,” I’d probably politely laugh and disagree with you. I have never really thought of myself as a “Creative” - I feel I am more of a technician
You know, the one who loves the precision, the measuring, the “how do we make this work” side of things, who licks the end of the pencil before they get started. I’ve always been fascinated by the mechanics of making clothes: how darts manipulate fabric, how seams change shape, how grainlines affect drape. To me, that’s always been the magic - the creative process.
And yet… the older I get, the more I realise that creativity doesn’t have to look like the romantic vision of an artist standing in a sun-filled studio, paintbrush poised over a masterpiece. Creativity can be problem-solving. It can be experimenting. It can be asking what if…
For a long time, my curiosity felt almost like a flaw - a distracting little voice that tempted me off-course.
What if I tried moving the seam here instead?
What if I drafted that sleeve completely differently?
What if I ignored the instructions and did it my own way?
My mum used to call me a “rebel without a clue” because I’ve never been very good at following rules just for the sake of it. I’ve always been the one to ask: Why do I have to do it this way? Who decided this was the “right” way? What happens if I don’t?
I was once reprimanded by a previous employer for not using ONLY YELLOW folders, when there were plenty of red, blue and green ones around - I mean - wtf right?!
And while that might have been frustrating for teachers or employers in the past, it’s actually been one of the most valuable drivers in my sewing and pattern-cutting life. Those little rebellions - the refusal to just accept that “this is how it’s done” - have pushed me to find new methods, refine old ones, and sometimes invent my own entirely.
Those “what if” moments used to feel like indulgences, the sort of detours I should resist in order to be efficient. But now? Now I’m starting to see that curiosity, and that tiny streak of rule-breaking, as my superpower.
The Technician’s Eye
I think part of my hesitation to call myself “creative” comes from working in a world where creativity is often linked with artistry or design in its purest form. People imagine a “creative” as someone sketching dazzling fashion illustrations or inventing wild concepts from thin air.
Meanwhile, I’m the one with the pattern paper, ruler, and pencil, drawing lines and shapes and making sure that bodice really will match up with the sleeve cap.
But here’s the thing - those calculations? They are creative.
The act of translating an idea into something that fits a real, three-dimensional human body is an act of invention. The process of working out how a drape will behave when you move a dart is as much about imagination as it is about measurement.
I think we do ourselves a disservice when we separate “technical” and “creative” as if they’re opposites. In truth, they feed each other. My technical skills give me the confidence to experiment, and my experiments keep my technical brain sharp.
Curiosity as a Superpower
The moment I really started reframing my curiosity was when I came across something Paul Smith said:
“You can find inspiration in everything. If you can’t, then you’re not looking properly.”
If you’ve ever read about his creative process, you’ll know he has an enormous collection of “stuff” - like warehouses full of objects, photos, bits of ephemera, quirky little things he’s picked up in markets or on his travels or that people have sent him. At first glance, it all looks like a random hoard. But for him, it’s a living library of inspiration. He’s endlessly curious about the world, and he lets that curiosity feed his work in ways that aren’t obvious at the time.
And I thought: That’s what I do - only my collection is different.
I might not have shelves full of vintage toys or old postcards, but I do have drawers stuffed with fabric samples, rolls of pattern paper covered in little experiments, and notebooks crammed with “what if” sketches. I have photos of garments I’ve spotted in shop windows, screen grabs of historical costumes, and folders of swatches in colours that caught my eye.
None of these things are “finished” in themselves, but they’re seeds. Sometimes I plant one and nothing comes up for months or even years. Then suddenly, something I’m working on will remind me of that swatch from ages ago, or that odd sleeve I half-drafted and put aside - and it blooms into a real garment.
That’s how curiosity works. It’s a quiet collector, storing things away for later.
Where My Ideas Come From
People often ask where I get my ideas from. The truth is, they rarely arrive fully formed. Instead, they grow from these little moments:
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Handling fabric. I can look at a photo of a fabric online, but until I feel it between my fingers, I don’t really know it. The weight, the drape, the texture - they all spark different possibilities.
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Watching people. I’m a great people-watcher. I love sitting with a coffee and seeing how coats swing when someone walks, how trousers crease when someone sits, or how a scarf is knotted just so.
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Looking at history. Old sewing books, vintage pattern envelopes, historical costume exhibitions - they’re a goldmine of shapes and solutions that we’ve half-forgotten in modern clothing. I am lucky enough to have an almost complete collection of ‘Golden Hands’ - if anyone remembers that
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Accidental inspiration. Sometimes I’ll be making something entirely unrelated and a fold in the fabric or an off-cut shape will make me stop and think: “That could be interesting…”
This is why I’ve stopped thinking of curiosity as a distraction. It’s not me “losing focus.” It’s me gathering threads that I’ll weave together later.
The “What If” Game
One of my favourite ways to push myself creatively is to play what I call the What If Game.
It’s exactly what it sounds like:
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What if I cut the pattern on the bias instead of the straight grain?
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What if I added a dart here instead of there?
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What if I combined this sleeve with that bodice?
Sometimes the answer is: It looks crap, don’t do that again. And sometimes the answer is: That’s actually quite brilliant.
But either way, I’m learning. And here’s the thing - those “what if” moments don’t just happen in my sewing. They spill into the way I teach, the way I design patterns, even the way I rearrange my studio. It’s a mindset of gentle rebellion, refusing to just do something the same way it’s always been done, and instead asking: Could this be better? Could this be more interesting? Could it be more me?
Permission to Experiment
When I’m teaching workshops, I see so many people holding back because they don’t want to “waste” fabric or “mess up” their project. I completely understand, fabric isn’t cheap, and we all want to make something wearable. But here’s a little truth I’ve learned: if you never give yourself permission to experiment, you’ll never surprise yourself.
Experimentation is where the magic hides. And it doesn’t always mean starting from scratch, sometimes it’s simply trying a new seam finish on a scrap, moving a pocket an inch higher, or testing an unfamiliar stitch setting on your machine.
Yes, you might make a mess. You might even make something unwearable. But you might also discover a technique you love, a fit adjustment that changes everything, or a colour combination you’d never have chosen on paper.
As my mum’s “rebel without a clue,” I’ve found that a little defiance goes a long way here. Don’t just accept the “rules” about what fabrics are for what garments, or that you must follow the pattern exactly. Try it your way. See what happens.
The Joy of the Process
Working in industry really shaped my thought processes. For years, I thought the goal was always the finished garment. The photoshoot moment. The ta-da.
Now I realise that some of my happiest hours in the studio have been spent in the messy middle - cutting, pinning, pressing, unpicking, re-stitching, tweaking until something feels right.
There’s something incredibly freeing about enjoying the process for its own sake. When I let go of the pressure for it to “work out perfectly,” I become more playful, more willing to take risks. If the garment never leaves the studio, that’s fine - it’s still taught me something.
And here’s the lovely side effect: when you fall in love with the process, you stop seeing “failures” as failures. They’re just steps on the path, experiments that add to your library of knowledge. And sometimes, the so-called failures are more interesting than the successes.
Your Creativity Might Look Different to Mine
I want to say this loudly for anyone who’s ever thought, I’m just not creative:
Your creativity might not look like mine - and that’s a good thing.
Maybe you don’t draft your own patterns or design from scratch. Maybe your creativity comes in the way you put colours together, or the way you adapt a shop-bought pattern to fit like a glove. Maybe it’s in how you style your clothes, or how you use scraps to make something completely different.
For me, creativity looks like:
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An endless fascination with how fabric behaves.
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A love of solving fit puzzles.
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A library of small experiments that slowly, quietly feed bigger projects.
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And yes - a little bit of rebellion against doing things the “right” way just because someone told me to.
If you’re someone who solves problems, who adapts, who tweaks, who says, I wonder what would happen if… then you’re creative. Even if no one’s ever given you that label - frankly - what’s in a label anyway.
Curiosity, Collected
If I had to give my creativity a physical form, it would probably look like a magpie’s nest.
Notebooks filled with sketches and half-written ideas. Drawers stuffed with fabric swatches. A camera roll full of sleeves and collars I’ve spotted in passing. Vintage sewing books with intriguing diagrams. Off-cuts I can’t bear to throw away because “they might be useful.”
Paul Smith’s “room of stuff” is a perfect example of this kind of inspiration hoarding, and I love knowing that I’m not alone in it. My collection might not be as glamorous or curated, but it’s mine, and it’s growing all the time.
The magic is in the connections. That swatch from three years ago meets the sketch from last month, and suddenly I’ve got a design that excites me. A half-forgotten sleeve draft sparks a whole new workshop idea.
Creativity isn’t always about thinking up something brand new out of thin air. Sometimes, it’s about collecting pieces and waiting for them to click together.
The Technician and the Creative
For a long time, I thought of “technician” and “creative” as two separate categories, and I knew which box I was in. But now, I think of them as the warp and weft of what I do.
The technician in me loves precision, structure, and making things work. The creative in me - that curious, questioning, slightly rebellious streak - gives me the “what if” ideas worth bringing to life in the first place.
They’re not at odds. They’re partners. And when they work together, I’m at my best. The rules give me a framework, but my rebel side asks why they exist and whether they can be bent or broken.
And perhaps that’s what being creative really is: having the knowledge to understand the rules, the curiosity to question them, and the courage to follow your own path anyway.
Jules x