Bebop Dancewear

Bebop Dancewear is a Liverpool based company specialising in the design of ladies and children’s designer dance wear. Noticing a gap in the market for dancewear that is “versatile and adaptable enough to be worn off the dancefloor”, couple David Birchall and Celia Thornley produce a range of products from dance dresses and pants to leotards and skate wear. Establishing the business in March 2011, they have mainly funded the business from their own personal resources.

Bebop Dancewear applied for a CAPITB Trust grant to help develop CAD/CAM skills, for the creation and adaption of digitized patterns, electronic plotting, lay planning and multi-lay cutting. They received a grant of £1000 towards the cost of this training, which saw one trainee take on formal training with on-going ‘on the job’ learning in the workplace. With this training, the company were able to fulfill the objective of their application. This was achieved by learning how to digitize and adapt current patterns, adopting an extensive range of other skills, including mirroring a pattern piece along a horizontal line, joining sections together in the CAD system, and copying patterns using rules from an existing piece.