Lucy Campbell is currently a Level 3 Garment Technologist apprentice at British bespoke tailor and military uniform specialist Samuel Brothers.

In her words

I’m on the level 3 garment technology course at fashion technology academy in Haringey, London,

I started the course last June and am around half way through. I barely have any background in tailoring, other than a short course in textiles that I completed at school. I wanted to undertake this training as when I started working at Samuel Brothers, the tailoring/ cutting side of garment technology intrigued me.

My experience of it so far is that I didn’t realise how much there was to study about garment technology and I didn’t realise how interesting/challenging it was going to be.

The best bits have been meeting new people who work for different companies and learning about what they do. I have also got to visit places like [tradeshow] Pure London which I didn’t even know existed before.

The unexpected parts of going to college were all the different units you have to learn for this role. It doesn’t just cover materials and garments, it is also about health and safety, security at work and maintaining relationships in the workplace as well.

I hope to progress my career here at Samuel Brothers by using what I’ve learnt at Level 3 and apply it here at work. I’ll hopefully go on to do Level 5 at Fashion Enter too.

More information

To find out more about this apprenticeship, visit https://fcfta.com/apprenticeships/level-3-certificate-in-apparel-manufacturing-technology

UKFT is working to raise the skills and productivity of the people who work in our industry to the highest level, ensuring the UK fashion and textile sector remains competitive against global competition. During National Apprenticeship Week, we will be profiling some of the new apprenticeship standards that we have co-ordinated since UKFT became Sector Skills Body for the Fashion & Textiles industry.