ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

You Can Sew Make a Difference

Darci Cheyne, costumer

These GBC fashionistas are going to the dogs

Toronto-based Sew Be It! workshop is a buzzing hive of activity. Kids take beginner-sewers classes, ’tweens fashion their own trend-setting outfits and theatre costumers stitch pieces destined for the Broadway North/Hollywood North limelight. All very hip.

Dilys Tong opened Sew Be It! in 1995. Soon after, Darci Cheyne, a George Brown Creative Fashion Design grad, joined the endeavour. Darci set up Tiny Tailoring, a sister company committed to creating visually captivating costumes and wardrobe for theater, film, and animation. Sew Be It! and Tiny Tailoring work out of the same Toronto location.

Both enterprises are thick with GBC alumni. “The George Brown grads are good,” explains Dilys. “They know what they are doing the minute they come to work for us.”

Dilys Tong, and Betty

For Darci, things are a little different: She has to be able to respond to new contracts in an instant, so she has evolved into the consummate creative networker. GBC plays into that nicely. “Often, I’ll seek out George Brown fashion students because they are eager to jump in and get that creative experience rather than just work on ready-to-wear.”

In a few weeks, at Toronto's Creative Festival, Sew Be It! will be asking everyone who passes its booth to sit down and sew a dog or cat bed for the Toronto Humane Society. “We want to create 50 beds a day for three days,” says Dilys. “Then we’ll give all the beds to the Humane Society.”

If you can’t make it to the Creative Festival, Sew Be It! plans on holding an additional sew-a-thon at the workshop in November. Visit www.sewbeitstudio.com for details.

Back to the Alumni Relations Office main page.

Revised: October 10, 2008