OTTOBRE design® magazines are published by a small Finnish family company, Studio Tuumat Oy. Starting in 1987 as a fashion design studio run by one woman, it today operates as a publishing company on international markets. During its first years of operation, the company provided design and patternmaking services for the Finnish clothing industry and also designed its own colorful, close-to-nature collection of children’s clothes called Vattumato®. Our knowhow in design and patternmaking, as well as our enduring interest in children’s and adults’ clothes, derives from that period. This engaging journey has also required perseverance, courage, patience, creativity and, of course, uncompromising professionalism.
The first OTTOBRE design® kids magazine, specializing in sewing patterns for children’s wear, was published in the year 2000 as a natural follow-up to the company’s own collection of children’s clothes. Right from the beginning, it was also launched in international markets and distributed to newsstands and fabric stores all over Europe. The magazine was initially published four times a year in Dutch, Finnish and German. These editions were soon complemented by the Swedish (2002) and English (2003) versions.
Encouraged by requests from our readers, we started publishing OTTOBRE woman®, a pattern magazine for women, twice a year as from 2006. Along with the expansion of the annual volume to six issues, the magazine started gaining ground in new countries, and consequently the choice of language versions was expanded to include the French and Russian versions in 2013, followed by the Spanish version in 2014. The OTTOBRE design® family magazine was published during years 2017 – 2019. This magazine contained sewing patterns for the whole family including patterns for men. With eight language editions in total, the readership of OTTOBRE design® spans more than 140 countries on all continents.
Thanks to the wide range of language versions and our wonderful readers, OTTOBRE design® has rapidly grown in popularity and become the number one trusted magazine among sewing hobbyists. Our active readers all over the world have created various communities on social media to share their hobby with others. Making things by hand provides a natural counterbalance to today’s information-technology centered lifestyle, and a strong DIY movement highlighting the joy of creating items oneself continues to flourish. We here at OTTOBRE want to be of assistance to readers on their way to discover their inner sewer. We are extremely happy about the active dialogue we are engaged in with our customers and include lots of designs in the magazine in response to requests for patterns from our readers. We also cooperate with a number of international fabric manufacturers in creating innovative collections to delight our readers.
Studio Tuumat Oy continues to operate as a family business, with some of our young models representing the third generation of the family. The company employs 8-10 full-time professionals, responsible for either creative aspects or publishing support services, as well as a large number of freelance experts. Over the years, we have acquired an international network of competent translators and agents. All in all, the production of one magazine requires the contribution of a team of nearly thirty persons. Our continuing goal is to create timeless, practical sewing patterns that are playful and cheerful with a Scandinavian twist. We want to help our readers to succeed in their hobby and encourage them to sew clothes that the wearers feel comfortable with and that also make the wearers feel happy about themselves!