Mikelle Drew-Pellum

Quick question, Reader, If your approach to fashion had an element, which one would you be? No birth chart required. 🔮 I’ve been thinking about how differently designers approach their ideas, their businesses and even technology, and I think most of us fall naturally into one of these four: 🔥 FIRE: The Idea Generator Your brain is always creating. One idea turns into three more, inspiration can strike anywhere, and once you get excited about a design, you want to GO. Your superpower:...

For years, Reader, I believed every fashion designer should learn Adobe Illustrator. Today, I'm not so sure about that. With so many new ways to design, visualize, and even generate fashion ideas, Illustrator has to earn its place in a designer’s workflow just like any other tool. So, . . . does it? After 28 years of using Illustrator, I’m sharing my perspective in my latest YouTube video. My answer may be a little more nuanced than you'd expect. Watch it now on the 383 Design Studio YouTube...

If you designed 20 styles for your collection but could only afford to produce eight, how would you decide which ones make the cut? And here’s the hard part: your favorite design might not be one of them. As designers, we get attached to what we create. But when you’re building a fashion business, there comes a point when you have to take off the creative hat and put on your merchandising hat. That means deciding what stays, what gets cut, and what might just need to wait for another season....

Just a quick reminder that this month’s CAD Chats with Jade Wei premieres today at 6:30 PM ET. Jade and I talk about the connection between 3D and real-world garment development, why construction knowledge still matters, what comes after the digital garment is finished, tech packs, pattern ownership, and where AI fits into the process. We’re also debuting CAD Confessions, so we get into terrible patterns vs. terrible tech packs, physical samples vs. digital twins, and whether AI is an...

This month on CAD Chats, I’m sitting down with Jade Wei, founder of Atelier WCMF, to talk about what happens when traditional fashion craft meets 3D and AI. Jade brings more than 20 years of experience across fashion design, pattern cutting, tailoring, technical development and product development, and today she combines that foundation with CLO3D and AI. One of the things we get into is something I think more designers need to understand: finishing the 3D garment doesn’t necessarily mean...

You can know how to design a great collection and still be missing a big part of what it takes to build the brand around it. When most designers hear “fashion technology,” they immediately think about tools like Illustrator, CLO3D, or now AI. And yes, those tools matter. But that’s only one piece of the picture. The bigger question is what happens after the design starts taking shape. How do you use technology to make better decisions, reduce some of the guesswork, and actually move from...

You can create a beautiful collection and still struggle to build a profitable fashion brand. Creating the product is only one part of the equation. You also have to think about what belongs in the collection, what has the strongest sales potential, and how those decisions support the business you're trying to build. That’s where merchandising comes in. Merchandising helps you look at your collection through a business lens, not just a creative one. And I think that’s especially important...

A few years ago, I made a video comparing CLO3D and Browzwear and asking which 3D fashion software designers should learn. That video became one of the most watched videos on my channel. But that was 2022, and a LOT has changed since then. CLO has evolved. Browzwear has evolved. And now AI has completely changed the conversation around fashion visualization. So, I started asking myself a bigger question: if I were advising an independent designer today, would I still recommend learning CLO3D?...

You have a great idea for a new design. Maybe you’ve sketched it on paper, created it digitally, or even used AI to help visualize the concept. But then comes the bigger question: how do you turn that idea into something a manufacturer can actually make? Because the sketch is only the beginning. In my latest YouTube video, I walk you through the six stages between your initial fashion idea and production, and show you where digital tools and skills like Illustrator, CLO3D, tech packs, and...

You finished your tech pack. So, you’re ready to send it to a manufacturer, right? Not quite, Reader. A completed tech pack is a major step, but it doesn’t automatically mean your manufacturer has everything they need to move forward. And that’s where a lot of emerging designers can get tripped up. You can have a perfectly good tech pack and still have an incomplete handoff. So before you attach that file and hit send, there’s another question you need to be asking: What does my manufacturer...