My wife used to work as a professional costume designer and wardrobe assistant for tv and film, but has been out of the biz for a number of years. Now, she’s looking to get back into the fashion field again, but her machine is not quite up to the task.
Can anyone (a) give recommendations or (b) point to reviews of sewing machines for professional or semi-professional use? NOT home hobbyist use. She’s trying to orient herself; back when she was in the field, people used a mix of midlevel hobbyist machines (Pfaff, Bernina) and ancient, indestructible industrial machines (the kind made of cast iron and driven by a belt). What’s current now? What are folks using in fashion design houses and schools?
Indestructible cast iron industrial straight-stitch machines from the likes of Consew, Juki and Tacsew are still the norm, unless you’re on Project Runway, where they’re using spiffy direct-drive Brother S-7200-series machines.
If I were making costumes, I’d be looking at something like a Consew 208-RB-series machine with compound feed, walking foot and the smallest possible pulley on the motor to manage the heavy stuff - canvas, brocades, leather, whatever. Years ago, I had an RB1 - now they’re up to RB5 or so. AFAIK, it’s the same basic design after all these decades.
For regular clothes, something like a Juki DDL 8700 would be better. This is just a plain old straight-stitch machine with nothing fancy.
Other than that, there’s all sorts of unitasker special-purpose machines like blind hemmers, overlocks, etc. that she probably doesn’t need unless she already knows it.