Perla u Suzy – The Startup of a New Alterations and Upcycling Business

Be part of the startup of a new alterations and upcycling business on the island

Sarah Business March 8, 2023 at 8:30 am
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Project Description

Welcome to Perla u Suzy!

Here’s a little backstory…

My passion for the arts started at a young age, with my mum and both grandmothers showing us different ways to be creative with fabric, yarn, beads and thread. From the age of 12 I was turning my grandmother’s clothes into garments for myself. A little snipping here, adding braid there and somehow I turned nanna clothes into “fashionable” items. I learned the art of sewing in further detail at school and also followed a two year course in pattern making and cutting. These skills came in handy when I started working in the costume department in the theatre industry. After working for more than ten years in the costume department, my love for fabrics and costumes grew. The thrill of fixing costume malfunctions during shows allowed me to improve on my skills once again.

My experience in the theatre kept growing and it is through theatre that I met wonderfully talented seamstresses along the way. With plenty of conversations about our mutual interest, I came across a few issues that Malta is facing with regards to the art of sewing.

  1. The art is slowly dying out. Unfortunately, the number of people who can sew is decreasing drastically. There was a time where everyone and their mother owned an insane collection of Burda magazines, followed the patterns and created their own clothes. Today, it is surprising how few people know how to do a hem or sew a button.
  2. With the lack of seamstresses, the issue of time rises to the top. Sewing a garment requires a great deal of time. Time to measure, time to pin and tack, time for fittings etc. And as seamstresses nowadays are busy with creating new items of clothing, they find it hard to fit other tasks other than the garments they create from scratch. Therefore, people seeking to alter clothes they already own, are unable to find a seamstress who has the time to fit in their alterations in their busy schedules.
  3. Fast fashion and its harm on the environment. Fashion is one of the most polluting industries in the world. People are purchasing more clothes year after year and wearing each item 3, 4, 5 times in total and throwing it away once it is damaged or doesn’t fit anymore. These then are burnt in landfills, causing 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions per year.

With these three main issues, I knew that I wanted to start something which I felt was needed in the market. And thus the birth of Perla u Suzy; an alterations and upcycling business, ready to make old clothes fit again, make them look as new or change them up into new items.

However, I quickly realized that starting a new business is not an easy task. You need funds, good equipment, materials and a proper working space.

This is where your help is needed!

I currently work at my own home, in a spare bedroom turned into a sewing room, with a machine I have had for the past 10 years and counting. My wish is to improve on all aspects of the business which in turn would be beneficial for customers.

  • A new and hardwearing sewing machine can help me work with thicker fabric, thus being able to take in orders for the altering of jackets, coats etc.
  • A large working space can help me work with larger amounts of fabric as well as the laying out of patterns.
  • Equipment and materials such as fastenings, braids, fabric, and anything that clients might need for their alteration.
  • Improve my own skills with courses online such as how to fix knitwear and using embroidery in alterations.

The aim is to have a good amount of funds to push the business forward. In an ideal world, the business will grow and flourish, with its own location to welcome clients and to work in, embellished with a decent amount of working material, and even a potential vacancy for others like me who enjoy the art of sewing and want a career in tailoring.

Help me make my dream come true and bring back the vocational business to the the surface once again! Donate today!

This campaign is part of the Erasmus+ project INCrowd.

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How will the funds be used?

  • New hardwearing sewing equipment and materials
  • Improving the workspace
  • Gaining new skills through online courses

Why Perla u Suzy?

I have always been a Disney fan. To this day, I believe that Disney has taught me lifelong lessons which I try to pass on to others in my daily life. It always amazed me how such a massive company started from a simple mouse. Fast forward a bit and my love for fashion and sewing started to emerge. So one can only imagine the hearts in my eyes when seeing Disney characters creating dresses for princesses. Like the mice in Cinderella. As I started to develop the idea for a new alterations business, I wanted to combine my passion for sewing and my love for Disney and remembered the sweet female mice in Cinderella that create her pink dress for the ball! There are three female mice that get mentioned in Cinderella: Perla, Suzy and Mary. I felt that three names for a business name was quite long and while Perla u Suzy was the final decision for the name, I knew that Mary (with my late grandmothers named Mary and Maria) would still hold a special place in my heart.

And thus the motto behind my small business: If mice can make such a beautiful garment, imagine what I can do with the skills I have learnt throughout the years!

Who is the face behind Perla u Suzy?

With a BA(Hons) in Theatre Studies at University of Malta and an MA in Performance Design, Sarah Grech started Perla u Suzy after working in the theatre industry for 10 years.

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