University of Fashion Blog

Posts Tagged: "sewing"

UOF INSTRUCTOR UPDATE: RUCHIRA AMARE

Our fans and subscribers LOVE to hear what our esteemed instructors are up to these days and if you’ve been reading this blog for the past month, then you know that some of our instructors are newly minted entrepreneurs: our menswear instructor, Rishabh Manocha and our swimwear instructor, Jessica Krupa, each have launched their flourishing new businesses.

This week, we’d like to put the spotlight on Ruchira Amare, an amazing talent who manages to combine her artistic talents with her technical fashion design skills. And, she too has launched her brand.

At UoF, Ruchira shares her expertise as an “artistic engineer” in her lessons:  Designer’s Inspiration & Portfolio, Fashion Illustration Using Pastels, Fashion Illustration Using Watercolors, Drafting a Women’s Jacket and Women’s Jacket Pad-Stitching & Inner Construction.

RUCHIRA AMARE (AKA Y.R. Egon)

UoF instructor, artist/designer Ruchira Amare (Image courtesy: Ruchira Amare)

Ruchira was born and raised in Mumbai and is a life-long learner. Although she earned a bachelor’s degree in technology and communication engineering at the University of Mumbai, Ruchira, who has always been interested in the arts, listened to her heart, and pursued individual study with famous Mumbai artists, photography at the National Institute of Photography Mumbai and eventually moved to New York to study fashion design. She earned a bachelor’s degree at Parsons the New School for Design and has worked under fashion designers Donna Karan, Laura Smalls and Peter Speliopoulous.

fashion illustration by Ruchira Amare

Live model fashion illustration by Ruchira Amare, aka Y.R. Egon (Image courtesy: Ruchira Amare)

Ruchira is a modern-day polymath. She is just as comfortable using her engineering skills to draft and sew tailored jackets as she is with a paint brush in her hand. As a fine artist, Ruchira’s work has been exhibited in Manhattan at the Dacia Gallery, The Leo House and Space 776. In Brooklyn her artwork has been exhibited at Established Gallery and the Greenpoint Gallery, and her photography at 440 Gallery. Her work was also featured at the Rochester Contemporary Art Centre in Rochester, New York, in Laguna Beach at Six Summit Gallery and online at the Colors of Humanity gallery.

Illustration by Ruchira Amare

Collage by Ruchira Amare – watercolor on paper with newspaper print entitled: Girl with Yellow Glasses (Image courtesy: Ruchira Amare)

Ruchira’s fashion illustrations have been featured during New York Fashion Week and her work was chosen as part of The New School Alumni Bookshelf 2022, a highly curated list of works by their most notable alum.

fashion illustration by Ruchira Amare

Fashion illustration by Ruchira Amare (AKA Y.R. Egon) exhibited during NYFW Art Hearts Fashion event at Angel Orensanz Church. (Image courtesy: Ruchira Amare)

In 2021, Ruchira continued her studies at the New York Academy of Art and the School of Visual Arts. She also explored block printing in India, using plant-based natural dyes from turmeric, dogwood and indigo. Ruchira’s new business venture combines age old block printing techniques, with contemporary motifs from her paintings, to create a fresh take on sustainable fashion.

block printing

Ruchira’s Indian block-printing using plant-based natural dyes. (Image courtesy: Ruchira Amare)

fashion sketches by Ruchira Amare

Block-printed fashion designs using sustainable dyes inspired by Ruchira’s artwork. (Image courtesy: Ruchira Amare)

block printed scarf by Ruchira Amare

Ruchira’s mission is to lead a happy life and be able to share her craft with the world, We wish Ruchira much success in all of her endeavours and especially with her new block printing sustainable clothing venture!

For more info on Ruchira:

Facebook: Ruchire Amare

Instagram: @ruchiraamare

Website: www.yregon.com

WE JUST GOTTA BRAG

FEELIN’ THE LOVE

As the University of Fashion, the world’s first and largest online fashion education video library, enters its 11th year in business, we thought we’d devote this week’s blog to why our subscribers love us so much. Besides the hundreds of great lessons that we offer, our subscribers have told us how much they love our super-directional Pinterest boards, as well as our Facebook, Instagram and Tweets, which provide up to the minute fashion event coverage, inspiring quotes and feature our new lessons. Oh yeah, and they love our You Tube channel. Our free sleeve sloper lesson on YT has remarkably hit an all-time high of 837K views, yikes!  But, let’s not forget other UoF freebies – our set of mens, women’s, children’s and plus size croquis give-aways which, drum roll please…have had more than 400K downloads and are still going strong!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with us, well then please, come out from under that rock and check us out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpETLHSVxsU&feature=youtu.be&t=6

 

TOP 10 REASONS WHY PEOPLE LOVE US

  1. Learn from Industry Pros and Top College Professors
  • We recruit only the best people in the fashion industry to teach our lessons. Each teacher is selected because they’re considered an expert in their field.
  • Our college instructors are selected for their particular area of expertise and based on their college peer and student evaluations. We interview hundreds of teachers before we choose.
  1. Lesson Satisfaction 8.97 out of 10
  • Before deciding on which lessons to film, we do research. We interview and survey hundreds of our customers to find out what they would like to learn.
  • We poll our high school and college students and teachers, our industry customers and our home sewers. Each plays a huge role in the lessons that we choose to film.
  • An outside firm recently surveyed 500 of our customers and asked them to rate the lesson that they most recently completed. On a scale where 10 is the “most satisfying”, the U of F scored an average of 8.97.
  1. Founded by a Designer for Designers
  • UoF was founded by Francesca Sterlacci, a former designer/entrepreneur, author and college professor from FIT and AAU. As chair of the Fashion Dept. at FIT, Francesca learned that high school students interested in fashion college needed help with their portfolios. Current fashion college teachers & students desperately needed tutoring, especially in the disciplines of draping, patternmaking, sewing and fashion drawing. While some colleges offer tutoring to their students, none have on-call, 24/7 service. Enter UoF.
  • Fashion industry professionals looking to upgrade their skills can’t find time to go back to school and so for them, UoF is the perfect solution.
  1. Enjoy College Courses in the Convenience of Your Home or Office
  • Subscribers choose from over 450+ lessons at a level that suits their particular skill level, whether they are a beginner, intermediate or advanced student.
  • Subscribers get to watch, replay and access our lessons from a computer, tablet or smart phone as many times as they wish.
  1. Videos that Keep You Stay Engaged & Visually Stimulated
  • To reinforce and add to the learning experience, our video editors have added state-of-the-art motion graphics to help the viewer get a better understanding of the material.
  • Each lesson is broken up into modules with music transitions so the viewer can take breaks in between each module or conveniently play back a module for further clarification.
  • Our videos are easy to follow, never boring, and move at a pleasant pace. Viewers have the option to rewind and review as many steps as necessary, which, is another benefit of learning by video.
  1. Find Everything You Need to Get Started
  • For beginners, UoF starts out by teaching how to create a portfolio for fashion college application.
  • UoF offers 13 fashion disciplines: draping, pattern making, sewing, fashion drawing, CAD art & pattern making, accessory design, knits, childrenswear, menswear, product development, fashion business and a fashion lecture series with lessons covering textiles, color theory, trend forecasting, fashion history and prominent fashion luminaries.
  • In addition to a resource library of suggested books, museums, schools and fashion terminology, we are also a one stop shop marketplace for the tools, supplies, machines, fabrics, dress forms, trims and art supplies that you will need for our lessons.
  1. We Keep You Connected to the Fashion Industry
  • Whether you are a working professional, a student, a teacher, a home sewer or one of the fashion curious, you will be able to access lectures including how to choose a dress form, how to pad a dress form, lectures by fashion book authors, and other topics such as textiles, the state of the fashion industry, current fashion trends and much, much, more!
  1. Schools & Companies Get Expert Help
  • We help colleges strengthen their existing curriculum with expert tutorials in all of the major fashion subjects and in the creation of hybrid classroom learning. In addition, we offer online licensing options for schools to create their own online degree programs.
  • High schools get the benefit of expert teachers without having to spend money on recruiting teachers with specific skill sets. And, access to our video library  is a great way to start a fashion club!
  • Companies use UoF to assist their employees in keeping current with fashion industry best practices.
  1. We are Affordable
  • Whether you are an individual subscriber who chooses a monthly or yearly option, or you are a high school, college, public library, group or organization, a subscription to UoF enables you to access all of our website and video content as well as our transcripts, 24/7 for the duration of your subscription. And…all of our lessons are now closed-captioned.
  1. We Now Have Books to Complement our Beginner Videos
  • As of January 2019, we offer, for purchase, a Beginner Techniques book series in Draping, Pattern making and Sewing. This reinforces the learning process and is a great way to learn, since the books follow the videos step-by-step, frame-by-frame. Don’t take our word for it, check out our Amazon reviews!
  • And, speaking of reviews…check out our industry, subscriber and academic testimonials and our press reviews to see why people in 177 countries love us. And thank you…WE FEEL THE LOVE!

Let us know which lessons are your favorite and what lessons you would like to see on UoF’s site!

All I want for—fill in the holiday—is the gift of fashion

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If you’ve been keeping up with the U of F blog, you’ll know that the Gen Zers on your holiday lists crave experiences. And when it comes to gift giving in 2018 (and beyond), the University of Fashion has experiences galore for the fashionistas in your life, no matter their age. In fact, we have unique gifts that will inspire year-round learning and making for the fashion lovers you know. Read More

Learning fashion design just got easier, thanks to UoF founder and author, Francesca Sterlacci

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Helen Ronan & Anastasia Scott (Laurence King Publishing), Francesca Sterlacci (University of Fashion), Dr. Jennifer Harmon (winner) and Jane Hegland (ITAA President)

In the fashion industry, so many of us can get swept up in the shiny end result presented on the runway during fashion week or the most viewed Instagram story of the day or perhaps, the must-have It Bag of the season.

And sometimes, the work of the dedicated, behind-the-scenes professionals who make It Bags and Instagram-worthy content possible in the first place, can go unnoticed. In this post, I’m not talking about hard-working designers, pattern makers and sewers—I’m going one step further behind the scenes to feature someone who works tirelessly to support designers in every which way she can—University of Fashion founder, Francesca Sterlacci. Read More

A Proud Look Back and a Sneak Peek into What’s Ahead at the University of Fashion

Happy 2018, U of F designers! 2017 has wrapped, and our hope for you in 2018 is that you take a moment to look back and recognize your accomplishments over the past year with as much excitement as you look forward to your new goals.

So, what are your top 3 proudest moments of 2017?

And your top 3 plans for 2018?

We’re asking ourselves the same questions. Read More

Big news for your smallest muse

- - Childrenswear

If you are joining the growing number of designers tapping into the childrenswear market, you may be on to something big. From Blue Ivy to Prince George, celebrity kiddos are driving clothing sales in droves. In addition, brands like Stella McCartney and Marc Jacobs have created “mini me” collections which offer kid-sized versions of their most popular adult offerings to support the increased demand for luxury childrenswear options. Read More

Instructor spotlight: Martha Palaza

There’s nothing like the excitement (and sometimes nerves!) that accompany the start of a new school semester. As fashion design students, you’re busy gathering the supplies you need for your next draping class, researching inspiration for your next project and possibly beginning to put together your professional portfolio. Most likely, you are also building your professional network as you work with your classmates and get to know your instructors. Read More