Fabric Library
Cotton, linen, wool, silk, velvet and more — drape, stiffness, translucency and cost compared, with the commissions each fabric suits best.
Unofficial · Fan-made · Free forever · Updated for launch
Every fabric, every seam, explained.
The community wiki for Dressmaker, the cozy sewing sim — beginner roadmaps, fabric behavior charts, pattern-placement explainers, bias-cut tutorials and commission walkthroughs. Written by players, tested at the mannequin.
No ads, no login wall — just the answers you need, then back to the workshop.
60+guides & tutorials
14fabrics tested & charted
35kplayers & counting
$0free — no ads, no paywall
The Wiki
Everything the game doesn't tell you
Dressmaker trusts you to figure out drape, grain and bias on your own. We don't. These are the reference pages players keep open in a second window.
Pattern Placement
Where a print lands on the panel is where it lands on the gown. Grain direction, print matching and panel layout — solved like the spatial puzzle it is.
Cutting & Bias
Straight grain vs. bias cut, and why one makes a skirt swing while the other makes it slump — with layout diagrams for every silhouette.
Sewing & Fitting
Mannequin checks, silhouette tweaks and seam order — how to catch a problem on the dress form before it becomes a problem on the customer.
Coins & Commissions
Which commissions pay best per hour of sewing, when to sell off-rack instead, and what to unlock first with your hard-earned coin.
Decor & Details
Buttons, ribbons, lace and appliqué — the finishing touches that turn a 3-star gown into a 5-star showpiece, placement by placement.
Start Here
Your first gown, in five steps
The exact order we wish we'd known on day one. Follow it in order and your first commission ships with five stars, not a learning experience.
Short on time? Each step links to one focused guide — about 10 minutes of reading each, screenshots included.
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Sketch the design
Read the customer's request, open the sketchbook, and lock your silhouette and palette before touching any fabric.
Read: Design & sketching basics -
Choose the right fabric
Match drape and weight to the silhouette — velvet for drama, linen for structure, silk for flow. The chart makes it obvious.
Read: The fabric tier list -
Place & cut your pattern
Print placement, grain direction and bias cuts decide how the finished gown actually moves. Cut once, cut right.
Read: Pattern placement, decoded -
Sew & fit at the mannequin
Assemble the panels, then use the dress form to check the silhouette — adjusting here is free; adjusting after delivery is not.
Read: Sewing order & mannequin checks -
Decorate, deliver & get paid
Buttons, ribbons and lace push the rating over the top — then it's coin, reputation, and unlocks for rarer fabrics.
Read: Finishing touches & payouts
Updated automatically
What’s happening with Dressmaker right now
Official patch notes as they ship, the live Steam review score and player count, the post-launch roadmap and the numbers from launch week — refreshed from Steam’s own public data.
Most Read
Popular guides this week
What the community is reading between commissions — pinned, bookmarked, and argued about in the comments.
Beginner
Your first commission, start to 5 stars
The complete day-one walkthrough: reading the brief, sketching, and shipping a gown the customer actually loves.
Read the gameplay guide →Fabrics
The fabric tier list: every material tested
All 14 fabrics charted by drape, weight, translucency and price — plus which commissions each one quietly excels at.
Start with the overview →Technique
Print placement & pattern matching
Why the rose on your swatch ended up on the model's hip — and the panel layout trick that puts florals exactly where you want them.
Read the gameplay guide →Technique
Bias cuts explained, finally
What diagonal cutting does to drape, when it's worth the fabric cost, and the silhouettes that live or die by it.
Read the sewing guide →Economy
How to earn coins fast (without grinding)
Commission picking, off-rack display sales and reputation math — the highest-coin-per-hour strategies after 80 hours of play.
Read the coin strategies →Guides
Guides & videos, from everywhere
Written walkthroughs in English and Chinese, technique deep-dives, plus the official trailers — curated and link-checked, all in one page.
Browse all guides & videos →Dressmaker FAQ
The questions people actually land here with — free to play, download safety, platforms and what to read first.
Is Dressmaker free to play?
No. Dressmaker is a paid game on Steam, around $14.99 USD with regional pricing. What is genuinely free is the official Prototype 0.5.5 on itch.io, and Steam's own refund window if you play under two hours. There is no browser version and no free full game — anyone offering one is not official.
Can I play it online or in a browser, without downloading?
Not officially. It is a downloadable Windows and macOS game — there is no web build and no mobile app. This wiki itself needs no download: every chart, walkthrough and diagram here is a web page you can read while the game runs in another window.
Where is the safest place to download it?
Steam for the full game, itch.io for the free prototype — those are the only two official sources. We host no files here. Mirrors, torrents and "pre-installed" copies of an indie this popular are a malware risk with no upside, and our download guide walks through the safe route step by step.
Which platforms is it on?
Windows and macOS today. A Nintendo Switch port and mobile versions have been talked about by the developers but are undated, and there is no VR build. If you are on a console or a phone, the honest answer today is that you cannot play the full game there yet.
Where should a new player start on this wiki?
The gameplay loop page first — it breaks the seven steps from customer brief to five-star delivery into order. Then the fabric and pattern-placement references, which are the two things new players lose the most money on. Everything else is listed on the wiki hub.
Fabric is paper. Scissors are the pen. We wrote the manual.
Start with the beginner's path, keep the fabric chart open in a second tab, and ship your first five-star gown tonight.