Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
A marker is the paper layout for cutting pattern pieces. Cavazza sees making markers as building puzzles, “where you’re not sure what the finished product is going to look like.” He has loved building and solving puzzles since he was a kid, a quality he sees as essential for someone who is going to be successful making markers. A talented marker maker, laying out pieces of the garment efficiently is going to save the company money, by marker utilization, how the garment consumes fabric. It can, he says “make or break a manufacturer,” which is something he learned both from his formal studies, and from working in his parents’ clothing manufacturing company when he was younger.
Although one of the things he learned from his studies at FIT was to use computer software to make markers, and programs like Gerber, Lectra, PAD, OptiTex, and Polygon, Cavazza says “there’s no computer today that can make an efficient marker, no matter what system I have. No computer can make a more efficient marker than a human can make. The human touch is always, always better.” His first job in a grading and marking company taught him how to make markers by hand, working with the pieces on a big table. It’s easier, of course, with today’s advances like grading and marking programs, the laser cutter that lets him cut patterns onto stiff cardboard and leather patterns onto plastic, or the N-HEGA scanner that scans patterns so they are easier to manipulate or share. 
Learning to make markers manually 
taught him how subtle changes in the cut of the sweep, for example, or the proportions of the rise or the sleeves, that might make subtle changes to the look of a garment while making dramatic changes in the cost to the company.
Paul Cavazza Explains Grading. Part 3
Tags: Create-A-Marker, fashion terms, markers, Paul Cavazza
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