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This is a show for burnt-out fashion designers (and TDs, PDs, patternmakers and beyond) who want more flexibility while still doing work they love. As a freelance fashion designer, you can build your fashion career on your own terms. Freelancing in fashion is the only way to get freedom in your day (instead of being tied to a desk). Whether you want to earn extra money on the side, fund your fashion brand, or replace your salary, the FDGP podcast will help you get there. Listen in for actionable tips and strategies to kickstart or grow your career as a freelance fashion designer, build your confidence, and create the life you want. Hosted by $100k+ fashion freelancer Sew Heidi, the show features interviews and strategy sessions with successful freelance fashion designers from around the world who've ditched toxic fashion jobs and taken control of their own destinies. This is the only place to get REAL insights from REAL freelancers who have built REAL careers on their own terms. (Formerly the Successful Fashion Freelancer podcast.)
Heidi:
In this episode, I'm chatting with Trudy Gardner, a freelance fashion designer specializing in 3D design for Intimates. Trudy's story is wild. After spending twelve years in the Canadian military as a pilot, her plan was to be a stay at home mom. But once her son went to school, she was itching for something to do. So Trudy started dabbling in Adobe Illustrator, and the next thing she knew, she was doing fashion flats for some big names in the home sewing pattern industry. That turned into her deciding to learn Clo3D specifically for Intimates. And from there, everything took off. Just three short years after starting her fashion career with literally no industry experience, no knowledge, and not knowing anybody, she now has multiple clients, has a course on Intimates for Clo3d, and a podcast called Underdressed.
Heidi:
Trudy has put in a lot of work, but her results show in our conversations, we talked about the specific strategies that she's used to find mentors in fashion to help her learn and how she landed her first clients. If you are coming to the fashion industry from a completely different career and aren't sure if making it is possible, you're going to love this conversation. Let's get to it. Trudy, welcome to the podcast. I'm really excited to chat because I heard a fun backstory about you and your freelancing career this week while I was interviewing someone else to the podcast. And you have some exciting major updates. So this is going to be fun.
Trudy:
But first oh, fun. Yeah. I look forward. Thanks for having me on and I look forward to this conversation.
Heidi:
Yeah. First, who are you? What do you do in fashion?
Trudy:
My name is Trudy. I am a freelance designer. I specialize in intimate apparel and cloth 3D. So since basically I took your course, which is almost two years ago now, I've been just learning, just learning, learning all I can. And at the beginning of my learning, I learned that was an up and coming thing and an up and coming skill that was starting to become demand in the industry. And from your course, I learned that Niching down was a good way to approach it. And so I approached Clothes Three D. I approached Clothes 3D with the perspective of using it specifically for intimate apparel.
Trudy:
And it worked out because it's a difficult skill set to acquire, to really know how to make intimate apparel, like do the pattern drafting, the construction process of it, doing like a tech pack. For intimate apparel, there's like 500,000 bits and pieces that go into one single bra. Right? So I was like, okay, this is something I can niche down in, but also expand in because there's so much knowledge that I can gain in it. So that's kind of the story. That's how it got started.
Heidi:
Okay, but also, you used to be like a pilot, military pilot, yeah.
Trudy:
Twelve years. Twelve years military.
Heidi:
And you retired from that for personal reasons. How does that and I want to know the timeline a little bit. Right, okay, so twelve years as a military pilot in Canada and then you retire and then when does all this fashion stuff happen?
Trudy:
It's just natural. You don't just connect the dots immediately.
Heidi:
No, I'm not really at all. I'm like picturing you in your fighting flight suit or something.
Trudy:
No, it's funny. When I got out of the military, when I was leaving, my best friend was like, yeah, that's on brand for you. That's my life. I don't know, I just get interested in things and I'm like, I'm doing that now.
Heidi:
Okay.
Trudy:
And that's how it's played out. So I went to school university, and I studied English literature. Not knowing you go into university and a lot of people just don't know what they're going to do, so they pick a subject and for me it was English literature.
Heidi:
That was an interesting this is before the military. This is the very beginning. Okay.
Trudy:
Yeah. So I graduated from university in 2002. I want to say that's a long time ago now. And I joined the military in I want to say it was 2007 is when I joined. Is that right? We'll look at the dates and see if they match up.
Heidi:
Okay, about that.
Trudy:
So around 2007. So, yeah, I joined the military. They were hiring pilots at the time. I was like, yeah, that's probably something I can do. That's probably something I can do. I'll try it. Worst case scenario, I don't make it through the training. And it's a good story.
Trudy:
And so the training was super intense, as you would imagine it to be, but I learned all kinds of amazing skills and I learned how to work with people and I learned how to learn, and I learned how to organize information and I got through the training and it was amazing. It was a fantastic experience. Some of the best training that you can get in the world for learning how to fly. So super privileged to have been able to go through that program. So I got my wings. I want to say it was 2012 and yeah, five years. It took me five years to go through the training. So 2012, I got my wings.
Trudy:
My first posting was to Yellowknife, which is in the northern part of Canada, and I was flying the Twin Otter, which is kind of like, you can imagine, like a bush plane. We put it on skis in the winter and we put it on tundra tires in the summer. And we did a lot of operations that were sort of not your typical off roading type of stuff.
Heidi:
Okay.
Trudy:
Anyways, this is a fashion podcast. Long story.
Heidi:
Yeah, that's okay. So you got your wings, you're doing this, you did that for twelve years. Well, I guess does the training include the twelve years? The five years of training yeah, exactly. Okay, got you.
Trudy:
So then my next posting was to doing search and rescue on the Buffalo in Comox. And towards the end of that, this was in 2015, I got pregnant and I had my son. So I had a year off for maternity leave. And I thought I would go back to work and think, like, I would continue on with my career. I had a nice, well established career at that point. But after I had my son and I went back to work, I just didn't want to be away from home all the time and away from him all the time. And I didn't want to miss his whole childhood. And while I was on maternity leave, I actually started sewing.
Trudy:
I started sewing, making baby clothes for him.
Heidi:
Okay.
Trudy:
Yeah. So that's how I started getting into it.
Heidi:
You taught yourself how to sew. Like, that was the learning. Okay. That was from scratch.
Trudy:
Yeah, you got it. So after I went back to work, I went back to work to work for a year after that. So that would have been 2018 to 2019 was my last year in the military. Yeah. I decided I was at the end of my contract. So we were on a twelve year contract and I was at the end. So I could have either signed on for a new contract or that could have been the end. And I chose I didn't expect it to go that way, but that's how I felt.
Trudy:
That's what felt right for me at the time. And I thought I would be a stay at home mom. I thought I would get out of the military and raise my son.
Heidi:
Yeah.
Trudy:
And a couple of years. So I continued sewing, continued learning, just out of pure passion for it and interest in it. And I took an online diploma on fashion design while I was being a stay at home mom. And then my son started school, and I was like, I want to work. I want to do something. I want to take these skills, I want to apply them, I want to use my brain. I want to be doing something that's not just for myself. I want to build a project.
Trudy:
And so this is when I came across your course. And I was like, okay, that's a thing. That's a thing you can do. I can freelance from home doing fashion design. And I learned illustrator when I did that diploma, the online diploma. And I loved illustrator, and I was like, okay, what can I do with illustrator? And from your course, I learned that you can do fashion flats. So I'm like, okay, I can do fashion flats. I'm going to try this.
Trudy:
This is the thing. And then the home sewing community has all of these independent pattern makers who aren't that good at illustrator or don't want to spend the time doing the work in illustrator. And I was like, okay, that will be my market. That's where I will start. These are the ones that I'll reach out to because I was interested in doing intimate apparel part that comes from me being a unique size to fit. So being able to make my own bras was a huge just a bonus for yeah, yeah. So I reached out, and then I started getting work from these independent pattern makers. Emerald Erin is one of them.
Trudy:
Lily Pad Designs is one of them. And, yeah, that was it. That was my start. But I wanted to get into pattern making. I always wanted to get into pattern making. And I discovered cloth three D, and I discovered not a lot of people were using it. And then I started learning it, and I was like, this is a thing. This is amazing.
Trudy:
This program is so useful, and there's so many ways that it can be useful, and it's a bit glitchy. So I'm like, why isn't the whole world using it already? Why isn't everybody making their patterns this way? And I discovered it can be hard to learn, it can be glitchy, and it's not well established as to my knowledge in the industry yet. In bigger companies, it sounds like it is, but definitely not, like, in the smaller brands or the smaller agencies. They're all trying to start acquiring this skill. And as I was posting stuff online, I was getting lots of really good feedback. Lots of people are like, oh, this is so cool. How did you learn to do that?
Heidi:
You were posting images of what you were building.
Trudy:
Yeah. Okay. And I was like, okay, people want to learn this. And I've just spent all kinds of time and effort and just time researching on the Internet and trying to source those nuggets of knowledge that you can find from various sources. I was like, Let me build a course. Let me build a course on this, because I thought now was a good time, because I was fresh. I've just solved all these beginner problems that I'm still aware of, because as you get more skilled in anything, you forget what the beginner problems were. So anyways, I recently launched my course this year as well on using Clothes 3D for intimate apparel.
Heidi:
Yeah, I love that. And you collaborated a little bit with Sophia Lusseau and another fast student, right?
Trudy:
Yeah.
Heidi:
You guys launched it together or something.
Trudy:
Yeah, totally. So part of my approach to making a valuable skill in this industry was connecting with other people who had the skills that I wanted to learn. And so your course was, like, amazing place to start accessing. Like, I found Sophia through your she was in the Facebook group, I think. And so I reached out to her and I said, like, hey, can you teach me pattern drafting? And she got back to me, and she was like, actually, if you teach me CLO, I'll teach you pattern drafting. Oh, my gosh.
Heidi:
I didn't know you guys did a swap like that.
Trudy:
Yeah. So every week we would meet up together and we would just exchange knowledge on stuff. And then one day I was like, okay, I told her about how I was developing this course, and she said that she was also thinking of developing a course. I was like, cool, let's do it together. You do yours on pattern drafting, which is what she did, pattern drafting. And Clo and mine is more of an overview. Like, here's generally, how you use Clo specifically for Intimate Apparel.
Heidi:
Oh, my heart is melting right now. That you guys did mean.
Trudy:
And Sophie is amazing. I have all kinds of good things to say about her.
Heidi:
Yes. As do I. You know her really well now. I've only done a podcast interview, and she was at one of our live events. So you know her better than I do. But she is amazing. And it melts my heart quite a bit to know that you guys did this skill swap and then launched your courses together. I'm that little emoji with the teared up eyes right now.
Trudy:
And I have to give a shout out to the Intimate Apparel Technical Collective, which launched yeah, I just learned about this. The other was it was beginning of last year that Nicola launched it. And Sophie and I both volunteered to help out with the administration and the social media aspects of it. So we were connected through that as well.
Heidi:
Oh, my gosh.
Trudy:
But great. Amazing resource. So it's for intimate apparel designers. Technical. Specifically for technical designers. And we have a Slack group, and we have meetings every month. We meet up on Zoom meetings every month. But another great resource that I'll shout out.
Heidi:
So cool. So cool. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so your story is amazing. Pilot, figure out how to sew. Start learning Illustrator, doing flats for home pattern or home sewing. Pattern developers, designers, whatever makers. And then Clo, work with Sophia.
Heidi:
Teach each other all these skills. Launch your courses together because they're very complementary.
Trudy:
Exactly. Yeah.
Heidi:
And the freelancing component, because this is where I learned something about you.
Trudy:
Yes.
Heidi:
Or two days ago, doing another interview. Talk about your freelancing work now.
Trudy:
So freelancing. It was the same thing when I first started learning Clo. I was reaching out to everybody who would talk to me, just like the way that you teach us to reach out to clients. But I wasn't really reaching out necessarily. Sometimes it was a pitch, sometimes it was just like, do you use Clo? Can I talk to you? Can we meet? Just trying to get information.
Heidi:
And you were reaching out to brands.
Trudy:
Brands and small agencies. There was a few small agencies that you've interviewed on the podcast that I tried reaching out to. And so Kristen Anderson was one of so so Kristen has some amazing resources online, just like free resources on how to create a tech pack for Intimate Apparel and how the design process works for Intimate Apparel. And so I reached out to her in that capacity, like, hey, I'm just trying to learn the industry. Would you be willing to hop on a one on one with me and just have a chat? And she's super generous and open and sharing with knowledge. So she did, and it was so nice to talk to her because I was getting a know in the beginning, when you're pitching or even just reaching out for knowledge, I was getting a lot of gets. Nobody gets back to you. It's fair because you don't have much to offer.
Trudy:
You're just asking for information.
Heidi:
That's cool.
Trudy:
So it was very nice that Kristen reached out to me, and Kristen gave me some advice, and we talked a little about Clothes Three D, and she was one of the resources where I learned that it's a hard skill to find specifically for Intimate apparel. And so that was one of the indicators that was like, okay, this is a useful skill. Keep going, keep going, keep working on developing this skill. And about a year later, we connected also through the Intimate Apparel Technical Collective. So she saw that I was present and active in there, and she saw my growth through that. And at the beginning of this year, she hired me as a freelance designer in Clo3d to work for her agency.
Heidi:
Yeah. Dear Listener, I batched the podcast, so I'm on a bender. You're my last this week. You're number ten this week. So I'm like, But I talked to.
Trudy:
Her like, two days ago on the.
Heidi:
Podcast, which will air at a very different time than your episode. But yeah, she told me that. She goes, yeah, and then in wherever we are, like January, she goes, I hired Trudy Gardner. I go trudy. What? I know her. Yeah, and she told me that exact story. She said she came to me for knowledge, and we had a chat, and she seemed really driven, and then that was kind of it. But she watched you over time, she said, I kept seeing her pop up.
Heidi:
I could see that she was very proactive to learn to figure out this skill. She took my advice and ran with it. And she goes, I was really impressed with that. I was seeing her, I don't know, maybe like posting on LinkedIn or something. And I think she mentioned she mentioned she saw you in the Intimate Apparel Collective. And I was like, It sounds like for you, a lot of that stuff came very naturally, right? But that is the way that a lot of these freelance relationships and just relationships in general sort of work, right, is like, you reach out for the advice, then you take it and run with it, and you're kind of putting yourself out there in some ways, like, you said you were posting a lot. Where were you posting? Was it LinkedIn?
Trudy:
LinkedIn and instagram.
Heidi:
LinkedIn and instagram. Okay.
Trudy:
Yeah. Listen, I don't know if it came naturally to me, but I'm a hard worker, clearly, and I like connecting with people, and I know how important it is to learn from other. Even when I was going through training as a pilot, we all depended on each other. You can't make all the mistakes that you need to learn by yourself. You have to learn from other people, and you have to learn that early on that you don't do anything in isolation. Even if you're a freelancer, nothing is happening in isolation. You have to learn how to learn from other people and also how you can contribute when you can, because that was also a part of something that I always try to and something that I learned from you as well, is that you got to add value where you can just figure out how you can add value and contribute where you can.
Heidi:
So talk about I'd love to dig a little bit more into these outreach that you were doing to sort of ask for mentorship, ask for help, because I think that's a place where I mean, here's what I'll say. I get a lot of emails from people asking for help, and a lot of them don't come off great. They tend to be very one sided. They don't even address me. It's not even like, Hi, Heidi, thanks for everything. That you like, hey, can you I need some help with this. And they're very one sided. Short, like, doesn't have much effort put into other I get some on the other side of the spectrum, too, but I think there's a really big opportunity for people to learn how to do this a little more gracefully.
Heidi:
So can you talk a little more depth about what your outreach actually looked like? And I know you didn't hear back from all of it, which you're never going to, but obviously you heard back from enough of it that it's gotten you where you are now.
Trudy:
Yeah, I'll tell you a story. So it's a running joke between me and my husband. I got on LinkedIn. There's a lot of just stuff like that that comes in on LinkedIn that's kind of irrelevant. And one day I got a message, do you want to buy socks? I'm an intimate apparel designer on LinkedIn. Who are you? No, nobody's ever going to respond to that. Even if I wanted to buy socks, that's not how I would buy my socks.
Heidi:
But people send these messages all the time.
Trudy:
It's about just recognizing that you're talking to another person on the other side of that screen. When you're writing a message, when you are ever trying to connect, you're trying to connect with another human being. So it's also a matter of just learning. When I get messages like that, you're like, okay, mental note. Don't send messages like that because it doesn't connect. It's stuff that you teach on the course. You get messages where people are like, don't call you by your name. My name's right there on LinkedIn.
Trudy:
You can see what my name is. It takes 1 second to see what my name is. Like dear miss, you know what I mean? It makes you stop reading that stuff right away.
Heidi:
Yeah.
Trudy:
And also, I think, especially if you can connect through other channels, like the Intimate Apparel Technical Collective, where we meet on Zoom once a month and we see each other's faces and we see how Kristen would come on. Those meetings, and she would see how I would interact with other people outside of the context of me looking for know, just in a context where we're having conversation, sharing knowledge about things. Yeah. I don't know. Does that answer your question?
Heidi:
I think so, but I would love to if you can sort of riff it. What did your outreach email look like? Were you connected with Kristen? Which was obviously like a really you didn't know it at the time, but obviously became a very important interaction for your freelance, right?
Trudy:
Yeah.
Heidi:
Like, what did you write and did you just email her, or was that on? Did what actually did you say Kristen?
Trudy:
I wrote an email to I think she had a I found her email. I either found her email or I went on her website and went right to her, where you can write contact me, like that contact me box. And I think I said it's kind of like what you teach in the course. So it was like, hi, I'm Trudy. I'm new to the industry now. I'm starting with I. I feel like, super.
Heidi:
That's okay. Yeah.
Trudy:
But then it was like, thank you for sharing all of the knowledge that you've shared on your blog. I've learned so much from you. I'm interested in learning just skills in the industry. Would you be willing to hop on, like, a 30 minutes call or you know what it was with Kristen? Actually, now I remember. You could have booked back then. I don't think she has it anymore, but you could have booked a free 30 minutes consultation. So I took advantage of that, and that was sort of what my note looked like. Something like, I want to learn the industry.
Trudy:
Thank you for the information that you've put out there for free. Can we meet?
Heidi:
Okay.
Trudy:
And then I'll give you some examples of other pitches. So when I was first starting out and Emerald Aaron was one of the first people that I pitched for illustration.
Heidi:
When you're doing the flats for the sewing.
Trudy:
Pitches, I already spent all weekend, like a whole weekend working on this pitch. I took one of her images, but I knew she was the right client. She has a small but expanding community, and she was like, community was a big part of her brand. So I thought that if I reached out to her actually, no, I knew she would get back to me because I'd reached out to her previously when I was learning pattern making just for advice on manipulating the pattern. So that's exactly what she does, right? She develops patterns and she'll help you out with if you want to make changes to your pattern. And so that was my initial connection with Erin. So it wasn't completely cold, it was a little bit of a warm outreach. And I did an illustration of something like one of the bras that she had designed and so on Instagram.
Trudy:
And I said, hey, this is something I'm interested in. Here's a sketch of something that you did, and this is like the most detailed, most beautiful sketch, but you led with massive value. Yeah, she was blown away by it. She was like, that's exactly what this is exactly the skill that I need right now. I have a few patterns coming out. And at the time I was like, I just wanted to do the flat sketches. Like, just the one, like a flat sketch of front and back. She's like, can you also do all of the illustrations for the instructional pattern instruction? Yeah, exactly.
Trudy:
And then either I think I pitched it to her, I was like, Well, I can also do your pattern, like the actual PDF pattern with all the labels and all the stuff that needs to be prepped to be made into a printed pattern. She was like, yeah, let's do it. Boom. Yeah, that was huge. Yeah. And then that community is so small that she shared me with all the other independent pattern makers. Yeah.
Heidi:
Okay. I love it. Go ahead.
Trudy:
I've kind of outgrown that now.
Heidi:
Okay.
Trudy:
Because I'm like, I really just want to be doing the cloth 3D. It's what I like the most. I like the pattern making, and I've been picking up new clients in that area as well, so I've been kind of growing out of the Illustrator stuff.
Heidi:
Okay, so talk about your other clients in Clo. How are you getting these people? Are you pitching or what?
Trudy:
Does this look like they're starting to come to me now or I'll find yeah. For example, there was a client who posted on LinkedIn the other day saying that he was looking for freelancers. He's a small agency, and he had an onslaught of designs that are coming from other brands who want their stuff made into clothes. Three D. And so he hired like, a whole team of freelancers to be just, like, making up these patterns and making 3D samples of them. Okay, so that's one other one. So there was other ones that have come through cold pitching as well. Yeah, just like now that I have an Instagram page where it's kind of like my portfolio where I can actually show my work.
Trudy:
So now when I reach out to somebody and say, hey, do you need any help using developing your garments with 3D sampling? They can go to my page and see that I do it specifically for intimate apparel. So it's exactly what they're looking for.
Heidi:
Okay. And talk about, what are you doing on Instagram? Are you posting regularly? Because I love bringing this. Like, it's a very overwhelming place. You're kind of shaking your head, so I'm like, yeah.
Trudy:
No. When I first started out and I was pitching, and I was just like, I'm just learning. I'm learning everything I can. I'm going to learn in public. You can go look at my Instagram and see the development of my skills. I left some of the earlier work on there.
Heidi:
Learn in public?
Trudy:
Yeah, no, not that consistently. When I had more time and I would spend a lot of time on a project, then I would spend a lot of time post on Instagram. Or just like, I'd be just super in love with a feature that I found on. Like, I just needed to share it. So I would do, like, a little post on Instagram about that particular thing. I never had a social media plan. I wasn't posting once a week. I didn't really try.
Trudy:
I thought my time and skills were best used in developing my skills, and the platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram were there to just show the world or clients that I'm here, I exist, and here's some work that I've done.
Heidi:
Okay. So I love the learning in public thing. That's really cool. I think a lot of people might feel like I can't post this because it's not perfect, but I think that's really cool. Right then you kind of paint this picture of your trajectory and you show the progress. It's really fun. So you built that out just, again, like, posting stuff that felt exciting to you or learning a cool new feature that you're super nerding out on, which is really awesome. And now it's just there, and it works sort of as your portfolio.
Heidi:
You can just refer people back there, but it's not this strategic, like, oh, I got to post two times a week. Use the right hashtag sort of thing.
Trudy:
My podcast, which I started this year.
Heidi:
Yeah, let's talk about that underdressed I.
Trudy:
Love the name underdressed lingerie podcast. Thank you. And it was sort of just in the same vein. It's before I even started working with Kristen, it was sort of always bubbling around in the back of my head as a way of meeting people and having conversations about the industry with my lack of knowledge. I don't know, the other people know way more than and like, while the first year when I started Freelancing, I was like, I'm having all these great conversations with Erin or with Kristen or with whoever, and I'm like, other people want to partake in this knowledge as well. There's a. Whole home sew with bra making community out there that just loved to talk to each other. I was like, I'm going to start doing the podcast.
Trudy:
And I started the beginning of this year, and my goal was to do it every single week. And I've recorded one every single week, but I haven't got them published every single so it's a bit of yeah, yeah. But it's so much fun.
Heidi:
I love so, like, who are you chatting with? Just anybody and everybody. Sort of in the intimate apparel space.
Trudy:
Yeah. So let's so I had Kristen on the podcast. I've had Emerald Aaron on the podcast. I had Lori Van Johnson, who's also.
Heidi:
Been on yeah, Lori is amazing. She's so cool.
Trudy:
She's awesome. She's incredible. And then I also had, like, Larissa King, who is a freelance. She's a freelancer, but she's also a instructor at Fit. She teaches intimate apparel design, who I met through the collective as well. Okay, who else? I had Stephanie from the squad. The Squad is this really cool company that's developing. They have some really cool proprietary software for developing the whole development process of a garment, including three D and body scans of human body scans.
Trudy:
Yeah. That one's not published yet, but it's coming out soon.
Heidi:
It'll probably be published by the time Disco is live. Yeah, hopefully.
Trudy:
Well, and who else? So many. Like, I've had small bra. They sell bra making kits, like, small.
Heidi:
Companies that sell yeah, I follow, like, orange lingerie. I followed them. I used to follow them on Instagram.
Trudy:
Yeah. I've never met Norma, but I have reached out. I pitched to her, and I haven't ended up working with her. But she's super nice.
Heidi:
You chatted with her a little bit or you went back and forth.
Trudy:
Okay, exactly.
Heidi:
That's so fun. Oh, my gosh, I love this so much. I feel like there's a real lack of podcasts in the fashion space that are talking about the real stuff that goes on behind the scenes of the industry. It never got sacked. I feel like every other industry had so many podcasts, and so it's really exciting to hear.
Trudy:
Yeah, it's hard to find.
Heidi:
It is hard to find.
Trudy:
There's one called hello, Girls that I would recommend It's about the lingerie industry very well. Like, high production value. It's not necessarily about behind the scenes so much, but an interesting, well done podcast.
Heidi:
Okay, very cool. Well, we'll definitely link to underdressed in the show notes. I'm really excited about that. You have so much going on. How are you feeling? Like you were stay at home mom, your son went to school, and you're like, I got to do something. And that was what, maybe two ish years ago.
Trudy:
Oh, man. Heidi. I would say even like eight months ago, I was like, I don't know if this freelancing thing is going to go anywhere. I don't know if I'm going to get consistent work ever. I don't know if I'm ever going to make enough money to make all this time and effort worthwhile and yeah, just in the past six months, it's really started picking up.
Heidi:
Yeah. Because you and I did a strategy session, like, I don't remember, in December. Okay.
Trudy:
That's when I was like seven with the idea. Yeah, exactly. Shortly after that. And that's when I was toying with the idea of whether it was even worthwhile to put out a course on cloth three D and whether I should just keep pitching or whether I should have gone double down on doing the courses. The course took me way longer to make than I expected it to in the start, but it's paid off, it's paid for itself. And it was such an amazing experience just to do it, to put it together, to think through the process. It made me better at clow.
Heidi:
Yeah.
Trudy:
And I have other ideas in the works too, actually. I've been talking to Kristen about potentially creating a second course where we go through the fit, like fitting in Clo3d. So we take a pattern, we mock it up in Clo3D. We identify where the fit issues would be and then how we would manipulate the pattern to address those issues. So look for that. That'll be coming out probably sometime this year.
Heidi:
Oh, my gosh, you are like, in such a different place, like you said, not even just two years ago, but just like six.
Trudy:
I think the hard thing about freelancing, I don't know, you can speak to this. Does it ever go away, that feeling? Like, I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to get new clients. I don't know if the work is going to fill up or I'm going to make enough money this year. I don't know. I feel like I'm not sure if that feeling will ever entirely go away.
Heidi:
No, I don't think it ever goes away. I still have that feeling in this business. What if the launch doesn't go well or yeah. What if this project wraps up and I all of a sudden don't have any more clients? Right, yeah. I don't think that feeling has ever gone away for me yet. I've been doing some flavor of working for my I mean, I've essentially worked for myself since 2000. It's been like almost 15 years. 13 years.
Heidi:
14 years. Yeah. So I think maybe you get more used to it that it's just always there, like it's just part of your being, but I think it's very normal. Yeah. And I'm not sure that ever fully goes away.
Trudy:
And I think it helps to look backwards. The trend has always been more clients coming, you know what I mean? The trend has always been more work, but there are down periods where I don't have a job. Like, I don't have any work at the moment. And I'm like, my husband laughs at me because I'm like, what if this is it, I'm done, nobody's ever going.
Heidi:
To hire me again.
Trudy:
Yeah, but that's I guess my trick is that I look backwards and I'm like, okay, that's never been true, so it probably won't be true in the future.
Heidi:
Right. I like that mindset. Right? Yeah. Because I've done launched fast. And literally within an hour of the cart opening, I'm like, no one's going to buy. We're literally going to get zero sales. This is it. The business is dead.
Heidi:
Oh. I mean, I feel that all the time. And you look back and it's never zero. Sometimes it's not the number you want. So what is the time when your son went to school and you were like, I'm going to do something? When was that moment exactly? Roughly 2000. And what.
Trudy:
He started school in September of 2020. And that's when I started. That sort of coincided with when I was finishing my online design course and yeah, that's when I started.
Heidi:
Okay.
Trudy:
Like around September of 2021 is when I really started getting work.
Heidi:
So we are July of 2023 right now. So it's less than three years you went from being a pilot to learning these skills, getting clients, learning Clo, launching a course, another course on the way, a podcast, working with multiple clients in Clo. I mean, that's amazing.
Trudy:
Yeah, it's a lot, right?
Heidi:
In less than three years.
Trudy:
Yeah.
Heidi:
Starting from zero.
Trudy:
Yeah. But again, nothing happens in isolation. Like, thank goodness I found you. When I found you, it was the right time and that worked out and you gave me access to the knowledge that helped move me along. You know what I mean?
Heidi:
I wanted to ask you, you said like, in the last six to eight months, things have really taken off. Do you feel like there was like a tipping point? Or can you look back and think about maybe it's just a culmination of everything you had been working on for so long? But I don't know, I was like, oh, is there a tipping point there or something? What happened?
Trudy:
Kristen yeah. Working with lot of a lot of the work when I learned I'm talking about the bulk of my hours are coming from Kristen, and I'm learning so much with her as well. So it's not just that I'm getting work from her, but I feel like I contribute to her team in such a meaningful way because Clo is new. She has another freelancer on her team who already worked in Clo and had a background in intimate apparel design and technical design. But we're just now really establishing her 3D procedures and I get to be.
Heidi:
A part of that.
Trudy:
So it's very satisfying in terms of that part of me that wanted to do work, like that part of me that wanted to contribute. That's exactly the kind of team that like super happy to be plugged into.
Heidi:
Yeah.
Trudy:
So the tipping point isn't necessarily I mean, yeah, I get a lot of hours from Kristen, but I also get the satisfaction of being able to use the skills that I've been developing now over the past few years.
Heidi:
Yeah, right, okay. And I really applaud you for your patience because and I think I can't remember where you were at with Clo when we talked. You must have already been learning it. But to put in the at the end of the day, sometimes we all want, like, an overnight success. I want it to happen yesterday. Right. But you invested yourself and your time into learning this complex software. You weren't getting an immediate return from that other than the joy of learning, which you love, I love as well.
Heidi:
But that was a good bit of upfront work to not totally know what.
Trudy:
Might not know whether it's going.
Heidi:
Yeah, yeah, right.
Trudy:
Yeah, I know. Listen, when I first started learning Clo, I was like, I don't know if this program is useful. I don't know if anyone's using it. I don't know if it's worth my time to develop this skill. I don't know if it's just going to be a software that's going to be obsolete in a year. But it was the little things on LinkedIn. When I first 1st started posting stuff with Clo, somebody from Triumph reached out to me and asking about my skills.
Heidi:
Sorry, what's Triumph?
Trudy:
Triumph, the bra company. Oh, okay.
Heidi:
I didn't know that. Okay.
Trudy:
Like, huge bra. Like, this person from Triumph is reaching out to me. Who's?
Heidi:
Nobody.
Trudy:
But it was like, because Clo was a valuable skill and so that never ended up going anywhere. But it triggered me to believe that, okay, there are companies that want this were the it was just like talking to Kristen, that thing with Triumph. And just like, the more that I dug into it, the more that I realized the industry was growing and growing in that direction. And even if Clo becomes obsolete, I don't think my skills will ever become irrelevant. Just like Illustrator. Even if Illustrator ever became obsolete or also, I feel like Illustrator is something that you use it all the time. Illustrator is not becoming obsolete. It's been around for a really long time and we use it in conjunction with Clo all the time.
Heidi:
Well, okay, so let's just highlight what you said. There was just that you were getting all these little signals from all these different places. That, okay, no, this is the right software. This is the right thing to do. So that gave you the confidence and the comfort to keep investing in your time and energy and learning it. Then I lost my train of thought about what else I was going to say on that note. Oh, I know. I was interviewing someone else this week who had a very similar experience, was like, saw Clo come on the market back in.
Heidi:
Like, I don't know when gosh and watched it for a couple of years because there's multiple 3D softwares out there. Right. And it's kind of like right. Is one of these going to become obsolete? Like, which one's going to really take off? Which one's going to wind up getting adopted in the industry? And she watched it for a couple of years before she invested the time to learn it because there's a learning curve. And she did also wind up going with Clo and just having great success in her freelance career because of that. So that was a very smart choice and very conscious choice. Right. Like, you were very mindful to be like, okay, am I getting the right signals to make sure I'm doing the right thing? Again, not working in a vacuum.
Trudy:
Exactly. I talked to lots and just read articles and just followed what other people were doing. Browseware is, like, the main competitor to Clo, and they actually have a free trial for independent designers that you can sign up for. So I did that. I actually learned Browseware as well. But then again, just through I decided I needed to pick one. When you try and spread out your skills too thin, then you're not really good. You're not getting really good at anything.
Trudy:
So I stuck with Clo, and I want to give a shout out to Erica LaFleur. LaFleur or LaFleur. She's in fast as well. She's another freelancer that I reached out to. I put a post on your Facebook page, on the Fast Facebook page, and I was like, hey, I've been developing my skills in Clo3d. Does anybody want to exchange skills? And Erica is somebody who reached out to me, and I learned some stuff from her as well about Pile.
Heidi:
Okay. What did you guys exchange or you taught her CLO?
Trudy:
Well, she already knew it. She had a pretty good understanding of it, but we would just meet and go through projects together. She has a collection that she's designed in Illustrator. And I was like, okay, let's bring it into Clo and talk about how you would make it was a pair of pants that we went through, how you would make the pair of pants and how you would fit them in. My my point there is just to say that there was lots and lots of just little just making connections, just, like just accessing the resources that I could to try and just keep growing. The goal is always, like, forward momentum.
Heidi:
Yeah.
Trudy:
Which it still is.
Heidi:
I really have to applaud the progress you've made. I know you've worked very hard. You are very clearly an extremely determined, dedicated, hardworking person, but it is really paid off. I mean, how does it feel to look back on at where you started less than three years ago, putting your son at your son goes to school, and you're like, I got to do something a little bit more. And then could you ever imagine where you are today. It's a huge transformation.
Trudy:
Yeah, totally. I don't know, I've always just been focused on the next step ahead of me, so I don't think I've ever taken stock of the whole I don't know. It intimidates me, the whole thinking about it, just thinking about it in the totality of it sometimes. Yes. I feel like I've come so far and I just want to keep going. I don't want to mess it up. You know what I mean?
Heidi:
Okay. I don't want to jinx it for you. Yeah, exactly. Oh, gosh, now I feel a little terrible.
Trudy:
No, I get what you're saying and I get what we're trying to look at, like, perspective. I was talking about this with somebody earlier on today. Our perspectives are so informed by what knowledge we have available to us, and we often are unable to see the bigger picture because that perspective, that knowledge, is just not available to us in terms of what we were just saying. I don't know. Yeah. I just find it hard to look at the big picture.
Heidi:
Okay. I feel like it's a little bit of that fear of like, is this the end coming in? Yeah, exactly. Is this the last project I'm ever going to get? It's like exactly. If you zoom out and feel really excited about the trajectory you've made over the past three years, that's going to.
Trudy:
Exactly. No, but all signs point to good further progress. The biggest factor is that I really enjoy the time, the way that I'm spending my time. So when you think about your resources, time, and money in life, the way that I'm spending my time is exactly how I want to be spending it. And so that's part of the real value that I get from approaching work from this perspective.
Heidi:
Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. And how cool is that, that you are so happy with how you're spending your time? Yeah, it's really gratifying.
Trudy:
I wanted to ask you a question. I don't know if we can have this on the podcast or not, but.
Heidi:
I know you don't edit.
Trudy:
Okay. Yesterday he said that you were talking to Clo today, so any sneak peeks on how that conversation went?
Heidi:
Okay. I probably will edit this, but that's okay. Make a note of that timestamp where it went. So good.
Trudy:
Oh, that's exciting.
Heidi:
Yeah. I actually was thinking, like, I'm going to send them the raw audio file from my conversation with Trudy, and we.
Trudy:
Just started doing it in the past couple of weeks. We've just kind of gotten ourselves sorted out. But it's every Friday at 08:30, a.m Atlantic time. And my name on Twitch is Trudy Gardner, three D and Sophia's, I want to say is Sophia Luzon. I'll send you a link so we can okay.
Heidi:
We'll put it in the show notes. Yeah. Wow, that's really cool. So my husband's always talked about, like, you should go live on Twitch. That's for gamer nerds. I know.
Trudy:
It's like for twelve year old boys.
Heidi:
Yeah, but that's wow. What are you guys talking about? What does the live look like?
Trudy:
Clo, we have each other as guests on there, and then we just bring up Clo, and then we just talk about different things. Like, we had one about Alvin On avatars. So this is super cool feature in Clo or any 3D software, but Alvin On has created avatars that are identical to their physical forms. So you can bring in the avatars in close three D and look them, measure them, put your garments on them and fit them. And then when you make a physical sample of that garment and then try it on your form, you'll get a one to one identical sample fitting on the exact same body. So it's super cool. And the other cool feature about Alvin On is that they now have these studios in major cities around the world. There's one in New York, there's one in London where you can go to the studio and fit your garments on their forms.
Trudy:
So you don't have to own a whole size range of their forms, but you can bring your garments to the studio and fit on their form. So it's just a really cool way to develop your garments. Well, how did I get sidetracked?
Heidi:
You were going live on Twitch. Twelve year old boys.
Trudy:
Yeah, exactly. So that was one of our shows. We looked at Alvin On Avatars and we measured them, and we're talking about how bras are measured and why they never fit anyone, ever. The measurement, the sizing for bras is just so messed up. And even when you look at if you look at the same a 34 B on one avatar is a totally different shape than a 34 B on another avatar.
Heidi:
Okay. Right.
Trudy:
So that was just topics like that. Clo just released 7.2 and they just released Soft Body Avatars, which is a super cool feature. Right. Especially for intimate apparel. So Sophia made up this like a sports bra type of thing, and so she tried it on the avatar and we can see the amount of compression that was happening. It actually deformed the bust on the avatar, which was super cool. Yeah. So it's just sort of like they're informal.
Trudy:
They're not really we don't put too much pre planning into them. They're open. The intent is that our students can come and ask questions or bring samples, but it's free for anyone. You don't have to be one of our students, but it's just something free that we thought is a nice extra feature.
Heidi:
Yeah. And it can help you guys continue to learn, too, as you go on their live and play around with the new tools and stuff.
Trudy:
Yeah, exactly.
Heidi:
That's amazing. I'm so impressed with everything you're doing. This is really exciting to have this chat and hear all the updates. It's been phenomenal having you on the show. We can't wrap up, though, until I ask you the question that I ask at the very end.
Trudy:
Oh, no, this question, I can never think of what my answer is going to be for it.
Heidi:
I know so many people are like, well, I heard you ask it 100 times. I feel like I should have been.
Trudy:
Prepped for answer yet.
Heidi:
What is one thing that people never ask you about being a freelancer in fashion that you wish they would?
Trudy:
I guess I wish people would ask me about being a freelancer specifically, maybe why I do what I do, not in terms of what it contributes to me, but what meaningful impact do I feel like I'm having on the world by being a freelancer? Yeah. And my answer to that question, specifically in closed 3D, is that I genuinely feel like I can make an impact on making the industry a better place, more sustainable, more efficient. I feel like it's a place using clothes three D to look at our garments is a way to shift our mindset away from always using physical samples to represent what we're trying to achieve. Because there's another way of doing it. And it's a better way not to say that we will always need physical samples specifically for intimate apparel, but it can get you a few steps ahead. And why not tap into that if it's accessible and available to us?
Heidi:
Yeah, I love that. I had a call with or interview with Jade from Fast Jade Way just the other day and she had a very similar answer at the end of the show. Like you guys'episodes, I feel like have ended on a similar and she she's a pattern cutter. And she goes even the amount of waste of pattern paper, like, you take one thing, you have to cut the whole patterning into and she's very much in Clo now, but she just said, I feel like it's just so wasteful. Not just the sampling, but every step of it. And that was like, her why? Was like, I can contribute to the fashion industry and the world in a better place. It was very aligned. So thank you for that answer.
Heidi:
I love that. Thank you so much, Trudy. It's been really an exciting conversation.
Trudy:
I loved having it. Thanks again for having me on, Heidi.