Simplicity Vogue and Burda sewing patterns bankrupt

[PinkCamelia369]

Has anyone heard anymore about the Design group who owned all our favourite sewing patterns going bankrupt? I am hoping they will find a suitable buyer who can run it all more efficiently. Even if there are several buyers who split the brands up again, at least they could keep them going.

Here's where I read about it https://drummrollknitwear.com/vogue-butterick-simplicity-sewing-patterns-in-liquidation/

I suppose it's cheaper nowadays to buy something in Primark than run it up at home. I have fond memories of weekends going out in a dress I'd just made. Home sewing patterns were bound to become obsolete eventually, I suppose - sad but inevitable.

Big conversations about this on forums, including links to shops that sold patterns / fabrics and haberdashery in the US. There are ever increasing numbers of independent pattern companies, plus scans of older patterns on the market, so a loss but not something that has as much of an impact as it once did. Many of these companies also had very little of their back catalogues due to lack of space or care for their archives (with collectors now working hard to preserve patterns). It's another case of venture capital buyout and collapse (again!) and it will be interesting to see if the copyright issues are enforced. Changing times, but dressmaking still very much alive.

Didn’t they price themselves out of the market? I saw patterns priced at £25. The answer is to make your own by adapting an old one you know fits

I don't have the time these days (but am looking forward to retirement!). You're right, I have a dress I've been meaning to replicate for years. I've left it so long that I would no longer fit such a garment in my wildest dreams!

There are patterns you can download from the internet, which again might have spelt the death knell for the printed ones, but I can't quite imagine the faff involved in piecing together lots of sheets of A4 instead of that lovely sensation of snipping through the tissue paper.

As a publishing model, dress patterns must be rather expensive to produce, especially given the endless fickle trends in fashion.

Yes they were expensive, particularly the Vogue ones, even though the amazing designers were no longer contracted. A lot of the smaller pattern firms are pretty expensive too. That is just for a pdf which is pretty cheeky.