Welcome to the Charm Institute of Style
A guided year-long exploration into the history, meaning, and craft of dressmaking.
Imagine yourself walking through a museum exhibit devoted entirely to the icons of midcentury fashion. Each room feels like a love letter to design itself: Charles James’ sculpted bodices gleam beneath soft light; Ann Lowe’s debutante gowns bloom with hand-sewn petals; Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking tuxedo commands quiet power; and Dior’s tailoring remains immaculate, as if time dared not wrinkle it.
As you linger, history begins to transcend personality. The brilliance of design no longer belongs only to the famous. You pause before a World War II utility jumpsuit, its seams sturdy but softened by wear, and a cotton day dress from the ’50s, its print faded by sunlight. These pieces speak quietly, yet with an intimacy no runway could match. You find yourself wondering whose hands stitched these seams—and wishing, just for a moment, that you could step through time to meet them.
By the time you reach the end of the exhibit, the garments begin to shift in meaning. They cease to be dresses, coats, or suits, and they become something greater. They are ideas, cut and stitched into form.
You have been invited into the private halls of the Charm Institute of Style, to become one of a special curated group of makers who will spend the next year exploring the great icons and movements of design. These are not distant figures on museum placards, but inspiring trailblazers whose innovations still shape the garments we wear today.
For twelve months, you’ll learn why silhouettes change, how politics influences design, and what certain techniques communicate about identity, authority, freedom, and self-expression.
You’ll begin to see clothing not as “pretty things,” but as artifacts of ideas. Ideas about women’s agency, labor, beauty, utility, movement, and power.
We’ll explore Vionnet’s innovations of fabric draping during the 1930s, the restrictions of rationing in the 1940s, Dior’s post-WWII ideas of feminine nostalgia, McCardell’s democratic ideas about labor and free time in the 1950s, plus so much more.
But the Institute isn’t showing you their style. It’s showing you the possibility of yours.
When you sew your own clothing, you aren’t just making garments. You’re shaping how you move through the world.
This year is about meaning, making, and mastery. It’s about understanding why something is beautiful, why it mattered in its time, and why you are deciding to include it in your life today. It’s about using style that is rooted in history, intentional choice, and the skill of your own hands.
You deserve clothes that make you feel fabulous, confident, and expressive. Clothes that reflect your mind as much as your measurements.
By spending the next twelve months at the Institute, you will build a wardrobe that feels like you. And you’ll create it knowing that you are free from fleeting trends, spared from settling for what is offered, and immune to anyone else’s vision of who you should be.
A Year Guided by Icons of Design
Join thousands of sewists worldwide as we immerse ourselves in a year curated like a major museum exhibit, designed to investigate fashion history, craft, and our role within the tradition.
Each month you’ll receive:
A Pattern Grounded in Design History
Each month you’ll receive at least one professionally-drafted sewing pattern inspired by a vintage design movement, period, or icon, with deep dives into the historical context and craft. Drafted for modern bodies in sizes 2–34 with cups A–H, each project explores not just the visual language of a period, but its construction logic and design intentions.
A Technique That Defines the Theme
Each month, you’ll practice a new technique such as hand-finishing, bias draping, couture embellishment, refined tailoring, and other skill-building tools of the dressmaker craft. You’ll learn why the technique was significant in its time, and how to do it using modern methods and tools in your own sewing practice.
A Curated Historical Exploration
Written to emulate the clarity and depth of an exhibition catalogue, each monthly brief explains the historical conditions that shaped the pattern. These aren’t lectures; they’re curated notes to help you recognize design patterns across decades and include additional resources for deeper understanding.
A Collection of Guided Style Curation Exercises
An ongoing personal project that encourages you to define the qualities, shapes, and philosophies that resonate with you, so your wardrobe reflects the knowledge, skills, intention, and self-awareness that you are learning throughout the year. You will have the opportunity to create a personally curated collection of garments that represent who you are and who you want to be.
A Welcoming Community of Fellow Researchers and Makers
Inside the private community and monthly livestreams, you’ll find thoughtful discussions, collaborative explorations of fabric and fit, and shared enthusiasm for fashion history and its modern applications.
Tier Changes for 2026
There will be no price increases in 2026. There will be only slight changes to your tier benefits this year, to emphasize the Charm Institute of Style theme.
The Sewing Circle
There will be no change to this tier’s benefits. Sewing Circle members receive the monthly sewing pattern, companion tutorial video, monthly live Crowdcast event with Gertie, access to Discord, first access to Charm merchandise, and the annual free Charm Patterns PDF sewing pattern (Gertie’s choice).
The Glamour Circle
In addition to the content listed in the Sewing Circle tier, the 2026 Glamour Circle content includes 12 additional sewing projects or digital content goodies. These could be pattern expansions, accessories patterns, advanced fit clinics, pattern hacks, guest artist designs, or other fun things that we feel inspired to create and share. Vintage by Gertie magazine will not be published in 2026.
The Princess Circle
Princesses will receive all of the Sewing Circle and Glamour Circle benefits, as well as a 40% off coupon for one Charm Pattern (3 times a year), an annual gift, and sneak peaks of at least two Charm Patterns before they are released. The 2026 annual gift will be a digital item, not a physical one.
The Inner Circle
This tier is designed for Charm’s biggest supporters who want to be a part of guiding what happens behind-the-scenes at Charm. This tier will see the biggest increases to benefits in 2026. Inner Circle members get everything in the other tiers as well as:
100% off each new PDF Charm Pattern when they are released.
NEW BENEFIT: Inner Circle members also receive all Charm Patterns two weeks before they are released to the public.
NEW BENEFIT: When the 18-34 size expansion of a Charm Pattern is released, Inner Circle members will receive 100% off a PDF copy of either size range.
5% off and first dibs on signing up for Gertie’s 2026 in-person Dressmaking Retreats.
Two exclusive live events on Zoom or Crowdcast as our Inner Circle Board of Advisors.
20% off coupon for Charm Merchandise (2 times a year) PLUS access to previous annual gifts as merchandise (according to availability).
NEW BENEFIT: You’ll get two free tickets to a (still secret!) book launch party, to be held in May in Newburgh, NY.
NEW BENEFIT: The yardage charts and fabric recommendations for each new Charm and Patreon pattern will be shared with Inner Circle members as soon as we know them.
A Final Word Before We Begin
This year is not about consuming more. It’s about understanding more.
Why fashion matters. Why details matter. Why your choices matter.
The Charm Institute of Style is a place for curiosity, craft, and the joy of creating clothing and a life that is intentional and beautiful, together with other inquisitive makers who value learning and depth, just like you.
We cannot wait to explore this year with you, and we’re so thrilled to have you in the Institute. Let’s curate the fantasy together.
xoxo,
Gertie
Comments (128)
Striking
Love this years theme. I hope that there will be a pattern of a pencil skirt with a circling pleates or flounce just above the knee in it. Just for dancing fourties dances like lindy hop and swing.
Please please please do the Bar jacket. I will die with joy
I’m really excited for this year’s theme. 👏
I am very much looking forward to this journey.
Do you think you could have binders available for purchase with this year's logo on them? Then we can print the extra info we receive and store them in the binder?
This is going to be a Fabtabulous year! So excited!!!
This could not be a more perfect theme after this last year. Love it ❤️
Thank you so much for this year's theme ! I am thrilled to get into fashion history. Love the idea to mix knowledge, techniques and sewing. Can't wait to dive into this year. And so impatient about this Dior Smoking !
Oh, Wow! This will be great.
🩵 *faints* 🩵
This is perfect for what’s going on right now! Thank you
Yes! Vionnet! I love the bias cut of the 1930's this will be so exciting. Thank you. I think the theme sounds so good. I'm also looking forward to the 1940's part. While I'm not a fan of empire waists, I look forward to learning about the designer. It'll be an interesting year!
I’m excited by this year theme! I loved the recent book released by Kiki Smith from the Smith College “Real Dresses, Real Lives”, which this year’s theme has clearly been inspired by.
I'm excited for this content. Will the historical content and the exercises be separate posts or included in the Charm Crowdcasts, or somewhere else? I can't wait to dig in.
They are included in the sewing pattern instructions. Although, I'm sure we'll be talking about it during the Crowdcasts, too!
Ohhh 😍😍 I love this so much!!
This year promises to be an incredible journey of exploration and learning. So glad that I’m along for the ride.
I love the new theme and how it is presented. the new instruction design with the background information and the reflections is amazing. The new pattern is just wonderful and so versatile. for me the museums style of the new theme is genial. Looking forward to the new theme.
As a museum-adjacent historian I am so excited about this! I think we actually have some designs made by Ann Lowe for daughters and wives of a group called Aksarben in our museum!
This years theme sounds fascinating, looking forward to the sewing year ahead! 💖
Dear Charm Team, thank you. I know some fashion history and it's social influences but this year I'm eager to learn more.
I love learning about the history of fashion! The Dressed podcast is my favourite
I love the general theme, but this month’s dress pattern style I do not like at all. Honestly, I am a little upset and very much looking forward to next month’s pattern. 😔
"You’ll begin to see clothing not as “pretty things,” but as artifacts of ideas. Ideas about women’s agency, labor, beauty, utility, movement, and power." Love this! Thank you for this beautiful and thoughtful theme. Looking forward to all the learnings this year !
I love this so much! Thank you!
I am so excited for this year’s theme! 🥹💖
I’m excited to see you in ALL the pretty things 🩵
I love the fact that you can add the sleeves from the Maria dress... that is AMAZING!
Hand sewn flowers, Smoking jacket, Dior …be still my heart. It’s everything I wished for!
Omg I love this so much!!!! So aligned to the way I used to teach design when I was a uni professor!! Can’t wait!!!!!
I love the idea of the history behind the fashion. I look forward each month to a new lesson. The only change I am going to miss greatly is no Vintage by Gertie magazine. I LOVE the magazine.
I’m literally crying right now. Half my life has been dedicated to historical fashion and I am so very excited for this year!! 💖
Lovely!! I appreciate the well-rounded educational elements so much!
I’m so excited to venture through history of fashion together. Good job with the theme!!!
I love this theme. This is going to be great.
omggg I cannot wait for the Vionnet garment!
I'm super intrigued and excited about this theme.
Yall we got hired after Charm School 🥲🥹
I am soooo excited about this years theme!
I'm so excited!!!
This is everything I needed and wanted to know in one spot. This year will be the best!!
Hot damn, let’s fuckin’ goooooooo
Love it! So excited to see what this year brings us!
Eeeeeeekkkkk! So excited! Also **pen and paper to order anything Gertie says to read, look at, go see, watch 👀 Can't wait to dive into this year and theme!!
I was just thinking of one of my Professors Joellen Updegraft who I keep in my mind telling me to slow down and sew it with care and that I can create my dreams. Also with rt 66 turning 100 this year I need the perfect outfits that scream me as well as my 1965 Falcon 'Flora'. I have always loved the history. I already celebrate the women in my family and my mentors in my sewing parlour. I think Charm really gets us all!
I’m so excited about this theme! I’m ready to learn!
Congrats on the new theme! Amazing choice 💕
Love this!!
I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS YEAR'S THEME!! Gretchen, you and the team have done it again!! CHARMING ONES, Let's Celebrate!!
This is everything I wanted ❤️ so excited!
I LOVE this theme! Might be my favorite one yet!
This theme feels like the natural direction we have been going for some time, but now we are going to dig in. Charm School 2.0, we graduated and are going back for more refinements and history. This will be so much fun! Can’t wait. 😁
I’m not kidding when I say you have given me the missing link between chapters in my political science dissertation. Off to do some research, and looking forward to this year! (Also, hi to my sister theatrical costumer up there! My first degree was theatre with a focus in costuming!)
This is perfect! I sew on a 1939 vintage hand crank Singer as my everyday machine and I am always thinking of what this machine has made in its previous homes and the sewists that I am following by using it. How lovely to think more deeply about the garments we will be sewing too x x x
I sew on Vintage Singers, with pedals!, too. Most of my garments are made on my 1957 Singer 401a, but topstitching is done by my 1930 Singer 99, and lingerie is sewn on my 1964 600e (the zigag is best!). They all make me feel so *connected* to the people who have gone before me. I think the woman who was gifted the 1957 401a for her wedding in 1957 and sewed all of her garments and so many for her children and grandchildren, would be delighted by the Ann Lowe inclusion, as she was a Black Woman, too. This is perhaps my favorite theme since I joined!
Wow, this sounds amazing. I have a degree in theatrical costuming so I learned a lot of this in college, but it’s been YEARS and we focused mostly on pre-20th century fashion history. I’m psyched.
I am going to love this year!
I am so very excited! I have been a patreon member since it started (i think lol) and have yet to sew a single thing 🥴🤦♀️ but this is my year! I cannot wait to get started ❤️ Gertie has been an inspiration to me for years and I am so excited to FINALLY get to craft a wardrobe that is uniquely mine 😍
Same, member since the beginning but haven’t seen any of the patterns yet 😆
I’m in tears and goosebumps reading about this year! I can’t wait to learn and sew with all of you! Thank you Charming ladies!!
This is an amazing theme!!
This sounds so fun!!
This is such an amazing theme! It resonates so much with my own sewing and crafting journeys, where I try to reuse materials as much as I can and learn skills that are applicable to helping community in different ways. "how politics influences design, and what certain techniques communicate about identity, authority, freedom, and self-expression...[how clothing expresses] ideas about women’s agency, labor, beauty, utility, movement, and power." The Charm Team did a fantastic job communicating these ideals in this write up. Thank you! *chef's kiss* I'm so excited!!
I always wonder how this year’s theme could continue to excite me like year’s past, and am so delighted by this! Thank you for bringing so much thought, planning and amazingness✨♥️
this is wonderful. such a gift, and every month?! this alone will be what gets me through the year. xx
I have 2 teen daughters. We have been talking about adding sewing skills to their experiences. To be able to share time honored techniques with them, to be able to talk about the why in addition to the how is very exciting for me! Thank you for all the time, effort and skill you bring!
I’m so excited for this theme! 💕
I’m so excited
Love this idea ✨💖
I can’t wait!!!!
Really looking forwars to this year! Thank you for a brilliant theme.
Wait! Are we getting all three patterns throughout the year?!🫠🫠🫠🙌🏻😱
As a lover of fashion history and someone who studied the interplay of fashion and economics, I am so ready to nerd out with this theme!!!!
I am picturing a goth version of the full length dress. With skulls in the centre of the roses, or spider/spiderweb embellishments.
Let your imagination go wild ☠️
Sounds very good. <3
EEEKKK!!!! So Pretty! Can't wait to what elegance and beauty can be resurrected back to day light.
This is fantastic!!!
Omg, I love it!
This is going to be an amazing year 🙌 ❤️. Love this so much!!!!
I'm sooo excited!!!!😊😀
Yes! Love this!
This is PHENOMENAL!! I'm so hopeful to have more sewing time in 2026 as my own staff increases. I can't wait to see what's in store!!! Thank you Gertie and team!!! ❤️
Oooooo does this mean that the American Beauty dress is the inspo for today’s release?!
Fantastic!!! Can't wit to get started, I am going to make at least one item per month this year xx
I love the theme this year! This is so exciting.
Omg, you did the Ann Lowe debutante dress. You did it!! 🌹 😱 I think I’m going to love this year.💗 📆
Wow wow wow - I absolutely LOVE this theme! I’m so excited to see what it brings and to learn all the new things… Thank you Gertie and team! 💖👏🙌
Dying!!!
Oh that's absolutely outstanding! I love everything about this! Gertie, you and the team have outdone yourselves! ❤️
I guessed the theme had something to do with fashion history but this is better than I imagined. I am so excited to see what comes.
Oh wow....I love this so much. ...thank you, thank you, thank you 😍
I'm so excited about this theme!
This is very exciting, I love the idea of how this year's going to be set out with the various lessons and historical background. Also mentions of Dior, Charles James and Ann Lowe who, along with Helen Rose, are three of my all time favourite designers is a real win-win.
Oh I could cry!!!!! I’ve just had the most difficult year of my life and my wishes during ritual last night were to discover my true self through love and creativity!!! I am so excited for this year with Team Charm ♥️♥️♥️
Once again, Gertie and team knock it out of the park! So excited about the theme and the new inner circle benefits... YAY!!!!!
I love the new theme for the year. The dresses are beautiful. Thanks and Happy New Year everyone!
Yay! Fashion and history. Two of my favorite things! So exciting!
Listen i just finished my haynes bodice for today and it has a hat that needs handmade flowers!!!! I cant wait
I'm 1000% on board for this idea! I can not wait to get started!
I think this is going to be my favorite theme! I got a little misty eyed just reading the description. As a costume director this is going to be very exciting!
Me too! It feels like a beautiful homage to the engineering of clothing.
I am so excited for this!! I love seeing how things are constructed and how to do the cool shit. I can't wait to learn how to make the fabric flowers on Susie's dress!!!!
Ahh! I've been in museums for 25 years and this is EVERYTHING. I love it.
Very ambitious… I’m intrigued!
Love this theme!
This is absolutely exhilarating ! 😍
Love the theme! So excited to see what comes. Time to get the crafting room in tiptop shape.
As an art historian and fashion history enthusiast I love this SO MUCH!!
We’re going to have fun.
Having just finished my History BA ( Hons), and planning on returning to more sewing projects, including restoring costumes I’m REALLY excited about this theme …combining my two passions..
The 20th Century is my favourite era of fashion. I even have an original “ tailor’s “ book for dressmakers , including blocks for women’s clothing dated 1935 to 1943 ..
HELLO?? This is so exciting!! I love this theme. ❤️
Another fantastic theme for the year! I am so excited to get started!!
HOW will you top this next year? Wow wow.
I’ve been waiting for this theme since forever, and this is so timely. Very Charm Patterns. Can’t wait to see what’s in store this year!
Wow! This will be fantastic!
Oh my giddy aunt. This is AMAZING!!!!!!!
Oh I love this! I can’t wait! Reminds me of my trip to the Met! Love, love love!
This is my favorite theme so far. SO excited
Omg this makes my heart sing! Having just graduated from a costume construction degree this is a perfect continuation 💜💖💜
I love every single thing about this.
Love the Ann Lowe Inspiration
Ohh, now THIS I am excited for!!
I really love this and am excited for the new theme. Thank you!
Imagine yourself in a Museum…I’m going to one once a month, that should be easy.
I’m hoping to be starting part time work in a living history one … covers 1700- 1980s