My Current Favorites – [March 2025]: My Sewing Books

You’ve guessed it, my new obsession is sewing. More specifically, tailoring. While looking for winter coats when I settled in Lille, I realized how poor the quality of ready-to-wear clothing is (regardless of price) and told myself that sewing was the solution to access the best possible quality without breaking the bank.

So, in sewing, there’s soft tailoring and structured tailoring. Even in haute couture, workshops are physically separated into two. In soft tailoring, you have rather fluid, normal garments; and in structured tailoring, more structured garments (jackets, coats). While a tailor must know soft tailoring techniques, a soft tailor doesn’t necessarily know tailoring techniques. So, to delve into tailoring, you first need to learn soft tailoring.

Since I’m taking online sewing classes with Artesane, I bought the three books by Christine Charles, a teacher they work with on the CAP Couture flou (soft tailoring certificate).

You know me well by now: when I get interested in a field, I’ll spend a week with a craftsman, or buy the same books as the students, to learn good techniques right away instead of getting lost among 10,000 YouTube videos with bad techniques passed from one amateur to another. Even if you don’t go for the CAP, what’s taught in it is truly the ABC of sewing.

In “Pass your CAP Couture with Artesane.com” (36€, Fnac link), each month, you get a lesson on fashion history, fibers, and several sewing projects with different techniques. It’s very comprehensive and interesting. I’ve read the first skirt project with a pleat and a zipper. I thought I could skip this project, but reading the assembly steps, I realize that (1) I don’t know how to make a pleat properly (2) its zipper is attached in a completely different way, and I’d be better off doing this exercise anyway.

I love Christine Charles’s style so much (she’s very methodical, being a former engineer) that I also buy her book “My Sewing Techniques” (29,9€, Fnac link), which includes a list of not-so-dumb questions. I took intensive sewing classes in Vietnam , but I still have many gaps. In it, I find questions I really don’t dare ask anyone because “cutting along the grain”—everyone knows it, but why? She says it’s like a Q&A: you don’t need to read it all at once but keep it by your sewing machine whenever you hit a snag. My teacher never taught me to make notches, and I find having them helps a lot. When I make my own patterns, I’ll add them too.

Finally, I bought “CAP Couture Exercise Book” (28€, Fnac link) by Christine Charles because I find the models in this book nicer to wear than the first one.

With the two “CAP Couture” books with Artesane, there’s a code at the start of the book to access for free the interactive space on Artesane, where you can watch some videos and download A0 patterns.

A0 patterns are super handy: there’s one layer per size, and by just checking your size, you can get a pattern for a size 36, for example, without having to figure out which line corresponds to which size. Even my printer was really impressed by this innovative system. Note: if you’re a size 38, the patterns are already printed and included with the books.

In Vietnam, during my sewing classes, I had many study pieces to complete. I keep this reflex of making and mastering study pieces before cutting into real fabric. That’s why I bought, again from Eyrolles publishing, 56 Sewing Study Pieces with Assembly Steps and Patterns (39,5€, Fnac link) to perfect my techniques. It covers all types of hems, slits, pockets, collars, zippers… with explanations, assembly steps, and illustrations.

By opting to buy deadstock fabrics, I have to order them online, but I don’t know what a “cotton satin” or a “gabardine” really means or how it feels. I discovered this book on fabrics with samples!! “Fabric for Fashion The Swatch Book“. It’s the most expensive book of all, but you can save about ten euros by ordering from Blackwell’s (75€)

I then bought two books by David Page Coffin, former editor of Threads, an American sewing magazine. For now, the level is so high that I just look at the photos; but he analyzes the finishes of many shirts and trousers (mainly high-end), explaining where to look, how to appreciate them, and especially how to recreate them.

• Making Trousers for Men & Women, 25.2€
• The Shirt (éditions Eyrolles), €29, Fnac link

All these books are also available new or used on Abebooks, which will save you a few euros or even dozens of euros on each book. Feel free to check there too.

UPDATE: I’ve taken up lingerie sewing. I find the projects much more satisfying because they’re quick and you can really save money by sewing while opting for the best fabrics (Calais lace, silk…). I highly recommend the book My Lingerie Workshop by Milena Sevette (Amazon link), the BIBLE of lingerie sewing. Even if the designs are a bit classic, there are plenty of tips, and from the base patterns, you’ll be able to modify them to suit your desires and fabrics.

Tailoring Sewing

I bought the ebook by Le Chas d’Albertine: CAP Tailoring (€25). I think she explains tailoring techniques applied to the industrial world and what’s expected for the CAP very well.
UPDATE: The ebook by Le Chas d’Albertine is now included in Artesane’s new book.

UPDATE: In the meantime, Artesane released a book for the CAP Tailoring (Amazon link), they took a long time to release the errata, but it’s finally here, also available on Artesane’s interactive space, accessible for free with a code provided in the book. I really like this book, but it’s just there to complement Sarah’s CAP Tailoring video courses because I find tailoring techniques very difficult and it’s better to have video courses on top. Plus, this book contains the knowledge needed for EP1, so if you haven’t taken the CAP Flou yet, it will help you prepare well for the EP1 of the CAP Tailoring.

For those not taking the CAP Tailoring, it’s better to aim for the traditional technique outlined in the following reference books:

• The Tailored Jacket for Men (28€, Fnac link)
• The Art of Tailoring (men & women, €39.5, Fnac link)
• Classic Tailoring Techniques by Roberto Cabrera

Since tailors are concentrated in France, Italy, and Savile Row, I really enjoyed reading about made-to-measure in the following books:

• Parisian Gentleman (Intervalles edition)
• The Italian Gentleman (Thames edition), coffee table book
• The Savile Row Suit (with brief tutorials for advanced sewists, where I notably learned how to make the Savile Row-style gusset to add to shirts)

After reading all these books, what I’m working on right now isn’t really presentable because they’re just study pieces. Which are also failures, but we all have to start somewhere. I hope to be able to show beautiful garments in beautiful fabrics in the near future.