While Alma has only been working at Connected Apparel for a year, she has already made her mark. With over 42 years in the pattern making industry, Alma joins the CA team with lots of experience.
Growing up, her great grandmother, grandmother and mother all worked as patternmakers, so Alma is not kidding when she says that pattern making is in her blood. “I started making patterns when I was 12 for my dolls. Now, my son and daughter are both designers and my granddaughter wants to be a pattern maker. We all have the gift.” While at school in Mexico City, Alma learned all about pattern making, production, and what goes into managing a merchandise company. She has worked in everything from lingerie to mens uniforms, costumes to bridal, and of course women’s dresses. After working as a production manager for a while, she returned to pattern making because it suited her more creatively.
“I always said that I love what I do and I get to get paid for it. It’s my passion.”
Alma loves the Noreen dress because of its figure flattering style and how it gives a younger, fresher take on a classic sheath dress. Everything from the fabric choices to the inclusion of the faux pockets had to be planned out meticulously to avoid making the dress too bulky. After 1-2 fittings with a model, she is able to perfect the final product before it goes to production. “To see the final product on the model is very rewarding for a pattern maker,” she says. When asked about the choice to recreate Noreen in three different styles she said, “it’s very rewarding when production wants to see the dress again in different fabrics. For this dress, however, we had to create three separate patterns because each material was so different. We wanted it to be perfect.”
Perfection is one of the reasons Alma enjoys her new job at Connected Apparel. While she’s been in the industry for a very long time, she says that Connected Apparel is “a very fun place to work with a very unique process. Everyone here has so much experience and how they work is so thorough that the final products are much more perfect than other companies.”
