About Me
Hi, I’m Rizwana Matadar…
And I’m here to help you sew beautiful traditional clothes you love and are proud of.
Here’s my story.
I grew up when there were no modest clothing brands or high-street shops, yet the shalwar kameez was what every South Asian woman wore. We even had our own fashions and styles within them. However, the only way to get the best suits was to get them sewn by a tailor.
At that time, sewing was a highly respected profession. I would watch factory owners drop off piles of clothes to local ladies who would use their sewing skills to financially support their families back home whilst raising their children here in the UK.
My mother admired these lady tailors, but never got the opportunity to learn sewing herself. This upset her deeply. So when I hit 13 years old, she actively started looking for sewing classes I could take. At first, she paid £60 to a local lady to teach me sewing, which was a good sum of money in those days.
But it was too dull and difficult.
Spending several hours a day with a lady much older than me and working on projects that I found boring was far from my definition of fun.
Plus, there were no YouTube and online classes back then. There was no replay button I could hit to revise what I had learnt, so the only option was to watch closely and try to recreate everything I remembered. This made the whole process longer and more frustrating.
I often wanted to quit but stayed to keep my mother happy.
Little did I know I was slowly mastering a skill that would make me the woman I am today.
I was a fashionable and extra feminine girl, so when my mother asked me to try sewing my own clothes after those classes, I happily dived right in.
I found love in the freedom of buying fabric and using the few skills I picked up to design suits that complimented my body and occasion. The more I practised, the better I got. Sometimes, my whole outfit would cost me under £3, which was a great achievement for any broke teenager!
To me, sewing became relaxing, satisfying, therapeutic and simply fun!
My passion led me to the clothing industry, where I started sewing clothes for a local factory. I went on to get a BA degree in Fashion Design from UCLan and worked as a fashion designer for many years before I started my own Modest Fashion line.
It wasn’t until Covid 2020 that I decided to bundle up my knowledge into an online programme and teach others how to sew their own beautiful traditional clothes too. To date, 500 students have enrolled and hundreds of them continue to share their wonderful creations in our buzzing sewing community.
As for my mother, I became her “Little Sewer”.
She keeps me in her back pocket, ready for any time she wants new clothes. Until this day, she refuses to pay anyone else to sew clothes for her and wears everything I make for her proudly. Yes, even that first scrappy batch.
It was through her encouraging words and example that I learnt that sewing is not just about designing and wearing pretty clothes, it’s also about being comfortable and confident in our identity and being proud to show our beautiful culture to the world.
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