Why Seamly2D?

We make a better fitting pattern
We hear from patternmakers and designers all over the world that Valentina saves them more time, is more intuitive, and creates a perfectly fitting pattern better than any other software on the planet. Valentina helps business scale and make profits. Why is Valentina different? We're developed especially to meet the needs of patternmakers and designer to create quality clothing with excellent fit. We were developed in partnership with our open source community. The community told us what they needed, and we focused on meeting their needs.

We are Open Source
Our open source background is the source of our super powers. Most of our users are not coders, they're creatives. They are extremely dedicated to downloading, testing, commenting on the forum, creating issues on bitbucket, and providing guidance and encouragement to Valentina developers.

Open source projects are used successfully in many different areas of technology. Open source development is proven to be effective and efficient at solving complex problems. Some open source projects are clear leaders in their area. Other projects compete with proprietary solutions and, through competition, have improved the quality of software solutions available in their field. Examples of successful open source projects include browsers, operating systems, office suites, graphics editors and web servers. We think that we are a clear leader in the fashion industry. Valentina is the only software development project, open source or proprietary, which is focused on providing small and medium sized fashion business the technology required to meet the demands of the Next Economy, and design and produce the wearable fashion tech of the present and the future.

If you know the history of the GNU/Linux operating system, you can understand what prompted its authors to create a new operating system. The proliferation of proprietary software created a new problem for users. In the pursuit of profit and to protect their intellectual property, software companies started to impose ever increasing restrictions on users' rights. Many people did not approve of this situation and decided to challenge these impositions. Their solution was to offer software that is free to use and extensible by anybody.

Similar stories can be found in almost every area of technology. Over time, the situation has improved for operating systems and now we can choose among several free offerings. Not so in the apparel industry. There are many solutions, fine solutions, but they are not available to the common person. Even small companies cannot afford the existing solutions. To us, this resembles the Middle Ages. The lack of affordable solutions and the lack of solutions which take advantage of current technology prompted us to create this project. So we're not aiming to reproduce what the other guys do "only cheaper", we're aiming to bust this industry wide open and create opportunities and profitability for Eco Fashion, Slow Fashion, Fashion Tech, Local Fashion, Custom Fit Fashion, and Collaborative Fashion that never existed before. We want to create options to consumers to buy excellent made-to-measure clothing at prices similar to the current market which meet their values and ethics. We want to implement a fashion ecosystem where garment waste is reduced by 60%. We can do this by creating a heartbeat of open source software Valentina. Then we surround it with other products which inter-operate. These tools will share and create non-proprietary data which can be utilized by any manufacturer or sewist to create garments. These tools will allow quick formation and teardown of collaborative manufacturing networks, and quick market response, production, and delivery.

One pattern to rule them all
Did you know that our patterns need no additional fitting? And that you can create one pattern for all sizes in all markets? Wow, that's some extra special heaping of profits right there. We studied over 50 different patternmaking systems and discovered the flaws and benefits of each one. We redesigned patterns to become proper engineering documents, so that each pattern contains all the information required to reproduce itself. We created pattern DNA.

So if you want to know more, or learn how to use Valentina, join our forum at http://forum.valentina-project.org

Valentina
The goal of our project is to develop a program for creating sewing patterns that is available for free to all who wish to use it. We believe that a small group of people with a common interest can achieve this goal.