One Month In: Inside the First Cohort of The Tailoring Academy

On October 19th, 2026, five brand new Juki industrial sewing machines started humming in our sewing education studio, perched on the 2nd floor of our Providence Nest store. It was the first day of our highly anticipated Tailoring Academy, a technical sewing education and workforce development program run in partnership with JAM Sewing Academy.

Why we built this

Part of The Nest’s mission is to keep clothing out of landfills. We believe tailoring, mending and upcycling clothes is a huge service that keeps clothes out of landfills and in circulation. We always say that tailoring your clothes to fit you exactly, keeps them in your closet and wearable forever. Tailoring services have always been a part of our business model, and since 2024 we have had only one tailor offering the service. Over time, our tailor had to start turning clients away because she had no time to complete people's projects. So we put out a call to hire tailors.

Two years of hiring…no one up to our standard. RISD fashion graduates, home-taught sewists, self-taught sewists, master's graduates in fashion design. Yet, they couldn't pass our hiring test in technical sewing.

We started asking them why. Some were never taught technical sewing in college. Others were self-taught and thought they were up to standard.

Who was running these hiring tests? None other than Julia Medeiros, our Lead Tailor, our sewing teacher, someone who has two technical sewing degrees and 25 years of experience, starting in Ukraine.

Why are our standards so high? Because people bring in their beloved garments and trust us to alter them. And we have high standards for our work. One, so we can charge enough to pay our tailors a living wage. And two, to build trust that we will not botch their garment, as that is one of my biggest fears as a business owner. To have to step in and tell a client we cut and sewed a garment the wrong way…it’s a nightmare of mine.

So I started looking for funding for apprenticeships, or money to support the time it takes to train new employees. And after months of searching for money and support with no luck, Julia got word that many people who were taking her basic sewing classes or were turned down for the job were interested in investing in themselves and would pay for a tailoring school.

So, The Tailoring Academy was born. Julia (aka JAM Sewing Academy) is in charge of building the curriculum. I, Danielle (aka The Nest), am in charge of the program's structure, finances and marketing.

I created one TikTok/Instagram video announcing our intent for the class, and 1,200 people from across the country filled out our interest form. Our minds were blown. But after reading why people were interested, we learned more about what we already knew: there were close to no schools or programs in the USA teaching technical sewing or tailoring skills. And current tailor shops, like ours, did not have the funds or resources to teach the new generation of tailors.

Then, kismet: right as we launched our program, a nationwide news story came out about the dying art of tailoring. You can read more about it here:

Meet the first cohort

27 people were accepted into this year's program. We are one month in. Let me tell you who walked up those stairs, why they came, and what they have already learned. (Spoiler: a lot about irons.)

27 students. 6 weekly class groups. 8 states.

I expected mostly local applicants. Instead, our students come from all over New England and beyond:

Rhode Island: 12

Massachusetts: 6

Connecticut: 3

California: 2

Vermont: 1

Pennsylvania: 1

North Carolina: 1 

Alabama: 1

Some of them drive more than two hours each way, every single week. When I asked one student about the commute, she said, "I have been looking for a technical program like this for YEARS, and it is worth the drive as there are no other options for me who are teaching this type of sewing curriculum." That is the kind of thing that makes me tear up at my desk.

Classes meet once a week for three and a half hours. Groups run Monday and Wednesday mornings, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and Saturday mornings and evenings. That way, people with full-time jobs, kids or businesses could still make it work.

Where they're starting from

Every student came in with some sewing experience. That was a requirement for this first round. But that experience looks very different from person to person:

• About half have been sewing for more than five years.

• Most are self-taught: YouTube University (that is what we call it around here), a grandmother who passed down what she knew, a high school class, and years of trial and error.

• Others have fashion and textile degrees, theater costume shop experience, quilting backgrounds, or jobs as working tailors who were never formally trained.

• A few run their own small businesses making clothing, bags or market alterations, and want to add professional tailoring to what they offer.

On our first-day survey, students rated themselves from 1 to 5 on core tailoring skills. Hemming was their strongest skill, at just over 3. Altering a lined garment like a jacket averaged under 2. So did doing a fitting with a paying client. And when I asked if they could work in a professional tailoring shop today, the average answer was 1.75 out of 5.

So here is what we have: talented, motivated people who have never had the training. That gap is exactly what this program is built to close. We will ask the same questions again at graduation, and I will share the numbers.

Why they're here

I asked every student why they applied, and I have spent the last month talking with many of them. The same themes keep coming up.

A career change. Almost half the cohort is changing careers. They include teachers, a marketing professional, a former buyer's assistant, a parent going back to work after sixteen years at home, and people who want work they can do with their hands. AI has come up in class more than once. People are looking for a secure career path, one that AI can't replace. We had deep conversations about a robot doing your tailoring…everyone's body is their own, and everyone's taste in how a garment should fit is so specific. That is why we will always need a tailor to be the one fitting and doing the work.

Doing it the right way. Over and over, self-taught sewists told me they can make a garment but don't fully trust their technique. One student summed it up: they want to "learn the right way to do things." Others said it has been hard to find anyone willing to teach and mentor aspiring tailors at all. A few weeks into the course, I asked the students how learning was going. Multiple students said they are "unlearning everything they have ever learned about sewing." One put it best: "I am learning to unlearn."

Sustainability. 22 of the 27 students listed sustainable fashion and upcycling as an interest, and 16 want to work in upcycling. Music to my ears. Many talked about helping people keep the clothes they already have instead of throwing them out.

Helping people feel good in their clothes. Ever wonder why celebrities always look so good in their clothes? Here is the secret the public doesn't know: almost everything they wear has been tailored. One student who is petite put it beautifully: "It's not your shape that needs altering, just the clothes!"

We at The Nest think that the easiest way to feel good about yourself when you are feeling down is to change what you are wearing to something you feel good and confident in. Take it one step further and get your clothes tailored to fit you. The feeling of wearing a garment made for your body is hard to explain until you have tried it. If you never have, I HIGHLY recommend it.

Getting hands-on. One student wrote that as more of the world moves toward AI, they want to be in spaces that "still value people making." Same. Many of the students also said they do not want to work on a computer all day. They want to work with their hands.

Where they want to go

When I asked about their goals after the program, students said:

• Work in upcycling (16)

• Work in a tailoring shop (13)

• Start their own alterations business (11)

• Add tailoring to the job or business they already have (9)

• Work at a fashion house (8), in production (6), or in bridal alterations (5)

• Plus a few I didn't see coming: theater costuming, theme park wardrobe, adaptive clothing, and community mending clinics

21 of 27 students said they want to work in tailoring or sewing during or after the Academy. That is a workforce in the making.

Month one: building the foundation

Module 1 is called Sewing Technology and Fabric Foundations. Everyone in the room already sews, and Julia starts from the beginning anyway. On purpose. In her words, the goal is to move students from "I can sew" to "I know what I'm doing."

Julia calls it building a technical library: professional methods students understand well enough to use on any garment, fabric or body, not just steps they have memorized.

Here's what the first month covered:

Lesson 1: Sewing machine settings and professional habits. Students learned to choose the right needle, thread and stitch length, how to start and end a seam the professional way, notching and pinning, and how to tell a correct stitch from one that's just "good enough." Each student also tested their own machine to see how it really performs.

Lesson 2: Fabric knowledge. Woven, knit and non-woven fabrics. Natural, synthetic and cellulosic fibers like polyester, viscose and lyocell. Most importantly, how fiber content changes the decisions a tailor makes.

Lesson 3: Pressing. Yes, an entire lesson on ironing. Julia would like you to know it is called pressing, and it is not optional. This might be the biggest mindset shift so far. Most of us learned to sew as pin, sew, done. In a professional workroom, every sewing step is followed by a pressing step. Students learned how steam, heat and pressure shape fabric, how different materials react, and how to press darts and seams.

Lesson 4: The trouser hem. Their first real alteration, and one of the most common requests any tailor gets. Students learned to mark the length at a fitting, transfer the marks, add hem allowance and finish a clean double-fold hem.

The work doesn't stop when class ends. Students practice at least eight hours a week at home. They are also training their "tailoring eye," which means noticing how clothes pull, twist and hang on people at the grocery store, on the street and at work. So if a stranger in Providence is staring at your pant legs lately, do not worry. They are just doing their homework ;)

I sat in on the first class of the course to learn and watch the students. A student in the Monday morning class shared that they had been interviewing and trying to get a job at a tailor shop for years. In the first 15 minutes of the first lesson about different presser feet, they looked at us and said, “I now know why I have been turned down jobs these last two years.”

What's next

Over the next five months, the cohort will move from technique to fabric, garments, the body, fitting, and finally full alterations, including lined jackets and suits. The program wraps up on May 1st, 2027, and graduation is May 2nd. I am already planning my outfit. It will be tailored.

Graduates will finish ready for tailoring studios, production work or their own alteration businesses. Some will join The Nest Tailoring Team here in Providence, where we are planning to open a daily alterations and tailoring service.

Want in?

• New to sewing? Our monthly Fundamental Sewing Bootcamp is a one-day, six-hour introduction to machines, basic techniques, and fabric. It's a great first step toward a future Academy cohort.

• Want to join the 2027 cohort? Get on the interest list. 

• Want to hire our 2027 tailor graduates? Email Danielle Sturm at hello@thenestpvd.com

• Need alterations? Our Tailor Shop opens in Spring/Summer 2027.

Follow along on Instagram at @the_nest_pvd and @j.a.m.sewing_academy.

All the best,

Danielle Sturm CEO & Co-Founder, The Nest