1 Comment Written by Tahnee Moore on November 2, 2009 – 10:20 pm

There is so much good coming from this little studio down on Smith St it’s difficult to describe them in a nutshell. The Social Studio’s primary aim is to give refugees a safe, welcoming place to learn new skills from experienced designers so they can then find employment in their new homeland. The offshoots of this project are: a fantastic shop where you can pick up one-off designer remakes, a coffee shop and sewing workshops that are open to the public. All the revenue raised from the offshoots go back into funding the primary project.

The shop and cafe are open 8.30am – 5.30pm Monday to Saturday and every second Saturday the sewing workshops are held.   The classes are open to everyone, for a tiny $15 you can learn to sew and/or reshape garments with the help of experienced designers. All skill levels are welcome, I went along not having used a sewing machine since my Yr.10 boardshorts, and came out with a organic bamboo singlet dress with a Ken Done bow!  You’ll need to book by using the contact us page on their website or by popping into the studio at 128 Smith St, Collingwood.

The project has been running since April and it’s all-round success is the result of intelligent planning and hard work from many people, including the catalyst Grace McQuilten, designers Erin Santamaria, Tamara Veltre, Leeyong Soo, Alice Goulter, Mariana Hardwick and Anna Loughnane.  The directors include Ben Edwards, Tobias Muench, Raphael Kilpatrick and Tamara Veltre, education adviser Gillian Essex, community leaders Nyanbol Kuol and Insitar Adam and journalist Farah Farouque.

This valuable community project needs our support to continue their amazing work so pop in for brunch, project needs community support to keep up their amazing work so pop in and check out the unique threads, have a coffee and a bite to eat or sign up for one of the sewing workshops!