How to “Clone your Clothes” with CL Hardie – plus a giveaway!

Hi everyone – Jenny here! I’m delighted to have a guest interview today with Claire-Louise “CL” Hardie, a sewing expert, educator and author of the new book “Clone your Clothes”, where she teaches you how to copy (and hack) clothes you love – no patterns necessary. It’s a fantastic, size-neutral approach to sewing, and so I invited CL to share more about her method and book with us today!

“Clone Your Clothes” is available to purchase in the USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand now.

Thanks to David & Charles publishing we also have three free copies to give away (open worldwide) – head over to the Curvy Sewing Community Facebook page (pinned post) to enter by the end of August 2024! Three winners will be picked at random.

Welcome CL! Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Thanks so much for having me on the CSC blog! I feel super honoured and grateful. Here’s a little about me, I’m a Welsh girl turned Londoner, having moved from Wales a couple of years after graduating from The Royal College of Music and Drama to pursue the wider range of Costume work opportunities here in the big smoke. I currently mix working part time on Good Morning Britain as part of the Costume team with a small business teaching dressmaking to home sewists, some of that is online in a membership club, or in person at sewing retreats, or via my self paced online beginners courses. I’ve always loved diversity in my work, and whilst I love teaching sewing, I still get a buzz working in the world of costume too. My varied career is a direct result of my Nanna teaching me to sew, followed by my aircraft engineer father applying logic to a sewing pattern to adjust it for my diminutive height when I was a teenager.

Your new book “Clone your Clothes”, is all about how to copy ready to wear clothes without taking them apart – where did you get the inspiration for the book?

The first time I ever heard about cloning clothes was during my costume degree when I was lucky enough to attend a lecture with Janet Arnold who wrote the Costumiers bible- Patterns of fashion. She talked about being given access to historically significant garments to take patterns from them and study their construction. Some of these pieces were from royalty or nobility and had to be treated extremely carefully. I was fascinated that you could use an existing piece of clothing to make a pattern. Over my career as a Costumier, I was often given a reference garment in the wrong colour or fabric to pattern, and it’s one of my favourite pattern making methods. In 2016, I came full circle on my master’s when I was part of a group of London College of Fashion students that worked on the V and A museum exhibition of Balenciaga pieces. One of my two toiles made it into the final exhibition, and is now part of the museum’s catalogue which is so thrilling! 

What are the main benefits of cloning your clothes? 

The main benefit of cloning an existing garment, is that you already know how it looks and fits, and that you like the fit and style over your body. You aren’t having to analyse the amount of ease etc or choose a numerical size because you’re cloning something you already love. Cloning also means you’re not second guessing how as style will look on your body, as you’ve already worn and loved it. It can also liberate the maker from trialling a new to them pattern and having to dive into multiple fitting adjustments and toiles because again, you started with a known garment. Often you won’t realise how much you love a specific garment until it’s no longer in stock, so cloning offers a chance to re-make what you like rather than having to stick to what’s seasonally available.

The other big benefit to cloning, is being able to choose better fabrics, or fabrics that you prefer. Take the orange dress on the book cover, whilst I love the fit, and shape, I don’t love that it’s polyester. The blue clone however is in a lovely viscose which is a fabric I prefer to wear. I could also use silk, or cotton or linen, again these are choices not necessarily available to buy in stores.

Another great benefit to cloning, is that knowing the fit and design is one you like, you can use the pattern like a block or “tried and true” and then make small hacks or changes to mix up the design a little. Again using the cover dress as an example, I improved the fit in the cloned version by raising the V neckline a little, and lifting the shoulders. These small adjustments mean the cloned pattern has become much more personalized.

I’ve always thought copying clothes sounded hard – do you have to be an advanced sewist to be able to do it? 

Whilst you don’t need to be a super advanced sewist to clone your clothes, I would say you do need to have made a couple of garments before, so that you know how a pattern works and what the shapes of common elements look like. If you’ve never sewn up a sleeve before for example, you might not realise that your cloned pattern looked slightly wrong after cloning it. Having sewn a garment that’s like the one you’re planning to clone, means you can also apply the construction knowledge too, as you’ll need to write your own sewing instructions when cloning. Like all things garment making, it’s good to start simple and then layer on more complex garments as you get used to the cloning processes. Since cloning is primarily a pattern making process, it’s actually a process driven method that doesn’t rely specifically on previous experiences. If you follow the rules/or guidelines laid out in the book then you will usually have a great outcome.

Is cloning clothes a size-inclusive approach to sewing? 

Whilst shopping for clothes doesn’t always guarantee perfect fitting clothes, as it can be hard to find clothes that fit your size and shape when shopping, when you do find that perfect pair of trousers, why not clone it and turn it into your go to trouser pattern. It’s always best to choose a garment that fits you today, rather than another past or future version of you. However, you can then tweak the fit to better suit your shape/needs after cloning the pattern. Think refining a v neckline or lengthening/shortening a skirt/sleeve. I find it a very size inclusive approach as I’m not measuring the body or making comparisons to a size chart with someone else’s choice of numbers applied to the sizing. Whatever the size of the original garment, it becomes size me once I’ve worn it, loved how it made me look and feel, and then cloned it.

Cloning doesn’t just apply to a purchased item either, I am currently cloning a favourite dress made a few years ago. It was an adaptation of several patterns, hacked, then fitted, tweaked and refined as I went along the making process. I never made a note of all the adjustments on my various pattern pieces which means the only way I can re-create this dress is to clone it. Many of my students find they want to re-make something they previously worked hard on but forgot to amend their patterns too.

What’s the best project to start for someone who’s interested in cloning their clothes? 

The best cloning project to start with is a basic design, that doesn’t involve lots of seams, complex deign details or asymmetry. In the book I use a basic T shirt example to teach the simple tracing method. A sleeveless boxy vest/top is also a great first project. Once you’ve mastered the basic skills, you can then increase the complexity of the garment, so the cami top project in the book is a great next step after a simple t shirt/boxy top because it introduces darts. There are 5 garments in the design school section of the book, which start at the easiest level and then progress to the more complex. The shirt for example is more complex because it has lots of elements, which will not only take more time, but also may need to be approached more differently than the T shirt.  

Thanks so much for sharing CL – I’m excited to give cloning a go! Do you have any questions for CL? Share below!