ECA Week Worker Story: Simone from A.BCH

This is a featured post written by Simone from A.BCH, an Ethical Clothing Australia accredited brand.

My name is Simone and I am the Head Machinist at A.BCH. My job involves manufacturing all the garments we make in-house, including all of our custom pieces. I also do sampling of new styles and some repairs by hand. I enjoy problem solving and figuring out the best way to achieve the results that Courtney (the Founder and Director of A.BCH) wants for the garments.

I was born in Toronto, Canada and moved to the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne in 1997. I started sewing as a teenager and I always loved the idea of being a garment technician. Something about following instructions and finishing something perfectly has always been really satisfying to me. After a lot of trial and error at uni, I finally finished my Bachelor of Fashion Design at RMIT in 2018. However, working as a machinist wasn’t really promoted as a goal at uni, so I didn’t seek out a position right away.

I started out doing a lot of freelance work, from pattern making, to textile design, to working as casual machinist doing small runs for local brands. I started working at A.BCH just over a year ago.

I learnt a lot about industry standards of sewing while at uni, but I had a really great knowledge base from Judy, who was my beautiful sewing teacher of many years. All the best tips and tricks that I’ve learned are from machinists, tailors, and anyone I could convince to teach me about whatever they were doing at the time. The rest is practice, practice, practice, trial, error, another error, and you can find a tutorial for almost anything on YouTube.

My current favourite piece from A.BCH is the A.38 Raw Denim Trench Coat. It is such a stunning piece, and you feel like such a boss wearing it. It’s beautifully tailored and the denim is just so lux. I love it because I could easily see it being part of my wardrobe forever.