FAQ

OTTOBRE design® magazine is published in the following languages: Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Spanish and Swedish.

You can buy single issues of OTTOBRE design® magazine at newsstands and well-stocked fabric stores worldwide. However, you can also order issues of OTTOBRE design® magazine directly from our webshop.

OTTOBRE design® magazine is aimed at anybody interested in fashion, sewing and handicrafts, including people working in these fields. Each issue contains designs for both beginners and more experienced sewers. We introduce professional techniques and the latest materials in the magazine, which makes it an excellent source also for teachers and fabric retailers.

OTTOBRE is the Italian word for October. We chose it as the name of the magazine because of its graphic beauty. Moreover, since October in Finland is often grey and rainy, we wanted our magazine to give “October” more cheerful vibes. To begin with, OTTOBRE was the name of our lovely brick-and-mortar store, and when we ventured into publishing a magazine, it was an obvious choice of a name for that too.

The last part of the name – design – is a word that has been adopted from English by numerous languages with the implication of high quality. We hope that the international name of the magazine reflects our market area that covers almost the entire world. It’s also easy to pronounce in most languages.

OTTOBRE design® is a purely Finnish magazine. Its editorial office is located in the town of Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland, close to the Arctic Circle, and it is also printed in Finland. The magazine has a Finnish, Scandinavian and international air to it. Part of the production team works at the Rovaniemi office while the rest are based elsewhere, in or outside Finland.

OTTOBRE design® magazine is largely a result of teamwork. The design and production of the magazine is led by Tuula Hepola, Editor in Chief. The production team also comprises studio dressmakers, photographers, graphic designers, translators and editorial assistants, totaling almost 20 members, some of whom work as freelancers.

Absolutely! We make the magazine for our customers, i.e. for you. Your requests are appreciated and we respond to some of them in each issue. You can conveniently send your request on our customer care form.

Our principle is to use ordinary children and adults of various ages and sizes as our models, instead of trained professionals. Most of the photography sessions take place in Rovaniemi, Finland. Since models will be measured and the sample clothes will be tried on them in advance, we prefer our models to come from not too far away.

Online purchases are always paid at the time of ordering.

You can choose from the following methods of payment:

• Visa, Mastercard, Eurocard or American Express credit card, or Apple Pay or Google Pay payment (service provider: Stripe Payments Europe, Ltd.)
• PayPal (service provider: PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A.)
• Online bank transfer (service provider: PayTrail Oyj).
  This method of payment is only available in Finland.

After you have chosen the method of payment, our system will direct you to the website of the appropriate service provider, where you can make the payment. You’ll receive an acknowledgement of your order by email soon after you have made the payment. If, however, you don’t receive an acknowledgement of order, please contact us.

Please read section 3 Payment in our Terms and Conditions.

We regret that this is not possible except within Finland, because our operating model is based on online ordering. Purchasing in our webshop is very easy and safe. However, if you have difficulties at any stage of ordering, don’t hesitate to contact our Customer Care for advice.

We deliver orders to most countries in the world. Please read our Terms and Conditions before ordering.

Yes, you can order back issues of the magazine for as long as we have them in stock. You can see the availability of the various issues and language versions instantly in the Sewing Magazines section of our webshop. Some language versions of the magazine issues that were published earlier may be sold out. However, you can order the issue that you require as another language version that we still have in stock and have it supplemented with the sewing instructions in your preferred language. You’ll receive a link for downloading the instructions with the acknowledgement of your order. Pattern sheets are identical in all language versions of the magazine.

All online orders are usually processed and dispatched on the first business day following the order. The average delivery time to Finland is 5–7 business days, to Scandinavia 6–8 business days, to Western and Central Europe 6–10 business days, to Southern Europe 7–14 business days, and to countries outside Europe 7–30 business days.

We recommend you contact us on our customer care form. You can also
send an email to service@ottobre.fi.

In order to buy from our webshop you must be at least 18 years of age or have your guardian’s consent to buying, have a valid email and delivery address, and accept our Terms and Conditions.

Choose the products you want from our webshop, add them to your shopping cart, fill in the required delivery details and select a method of payment. Our webshop system will display a summary of your order and, after you accept our Terms and Conditions, redirect you to the payment service provider that you selected.

The webshop will calculate the delivery charges on the basis of your order and they will be added to the total of your order after you select the country of destination. You will see the delivery charges before confirming your order and paying for it.

Buying from our webshop is extremely safe. We use a secure, internationally-recognized SSL-encrypted payment system and participate in the Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode schemes. The payment transaction is kept totally confidential. Data relating to the transaction and to your credit card is only passed between our service provider and your card issuer. We don’t see or process your credit card information at any stage, and we cannot charge your credit card on your behalf.

It’s essential that you give us a valid email address that you access regularly when you make purchases from our webshop. We need it for sending the acknowledgment of your order to you.

If you wish, you can also subscribe to the OTTOBRE newsletter when submitting your order. In our newsletters we share information about our new magazines and current campaigns. We will not pass your email address on to other businesses. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter any time using the link at the end of the letter.

The personal data that you provide when you make purchases is processed, in compliance with the Finnish Personal Data Act and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, in order to manage a relationship that is based on customership between you and us. Data contained in our customer register is not disclosed to any third party. Further information.

Under the Finnish Consumer Protection Act, you have the right to cancel an order made via distance selling within 14 days of the receipt of the products.

The right of return does not apply to orders for single magazine issues, fabrics (because they are cut to order) and digitally delivered e-patterns.

Under the Finnish Consumer Protection Act, you have the right to return products purchased from our webshop within 14 days. The right of return only applies to unused products that are in their original packaging and in a re-saleable condition. The right of return does not apply to fabrics (because they are cut to order), orders for single magazine issues, and digitally delivered e-patterns.

Products must be returned without delay within 14 days of their receipt. Within Finland, products can be returned free of charge as a customer return. If you return products from other countries you are responsible for the return costs.

Please always contact us by email or on our customer care form about returning products first, then send the products well packaged to:

Studio Tuumat Oy c/o Vivi Point Oy
Vistantie 19
FI-21530 Paimio
Finland

We will refund your payment for products that are returned following our instructions. We will credit the credit card or PayPal payments to your credit card or PayPal account. We need the following information for refunding:

• the name of the refund recipient
• the date when the payment was made for the order, as well as the number of the order
• the customer number / invoice number of the refund recipient
• a specification of the returned products

In addition, we need the following information when the refund is credited to your bank account:

• the bank account number (IBAN) of the refund recipient as well as the name, address and BIC code of the bank (you’ll find this information on your bank statement)

The payment will be credited to your account after the order has been cancelled and possible product returns have been received and processed.

If you didn’t receive an acknowledgement of order, first check if your payment has gone through (from your credit card or PayPal account). If necessary, please contact our Customer Care.

Please, contact our Customer Care immediately in order to rectify the mistake. It’s important to contact us straightaway because your order goes to our dispatch department on the first business day following your order. The customer bears the responsibility for checking the acknowledgement of order and for requesting rectification of mistakes.

The payment transaction can fail for various reasons. The most common reason is that the use of your credit card for international payments has been restricted. Our webshop is based in Finland, and a restriction concerning Finland stops the payment from going through.

Please check the following:

• Did you provide all required information at the time of ordering
• Can your credit card be used in online payment systems and for payments to Finland?
• Is the payment still waiting for your authorization? Be patient. The payment transaction may take 30–60 seconds.

Check whether the issue in your desired language was sold out and you ordered the issue in another language. If so, a link for downloading the PDF file with the sewing instructions in your desired language was sent to you with the acknowledgement of your order, and you’ll also find the PDF file on your customer account if you are a registered user of our webshop.

In case we sent a magazine issue in a wrong language by mistake, please contact our Customer Care in order to rectify the matter.

If necessary, please contact our Customer Care. We deal with all complaints on a case-by-case basis.

Studio Tuumat Oy/OTTOBRE design® accepts trainees each year from various educational institutions in the field, also from abroad. Please send us a free-form application!

The copyrights to the designs, sewing patterns and instructions belong to the respective designers and/or Studio Tuumat Oy. See Publisher and Copyrights sections on our website

Students and members of hobby groups can trace our patterns for their personal and private use from the teacher’s or group instructor’s OTTOBRE design® magazine. However, designs, instructions or patterns must in no case be copied, digitized, saved or published to be distributed or sold in Facebook groups or on blogs, for example.

Our designs and patterns can be used free of charge for making clothes on a small scale for the purpose of being donated to charity.

The designs, instructions and patterns are intended for personal use by sewing hobbyists. All commercial or industrial use is prohibited. The designs, instructions, patterns, drawings and photos of the magazine are protected by copyright laws, and the right of reproducing them by any means or in any form is exclusively reserved for the copyright holder, i.e. Studio Tuumat Oy. The copying of the material onto a device that can be used for duplicating it is also regarded as reproduction.

See Publisher and Copyrights sections on our website

You can send questions about the patterns and instructions and give feedback on the content of the magazine using our customer care form.

The patterns don’t include seam allowances unless otherwise stated in the sewing instructions. Read the sewing instructions for the design as well as the general instructions in the magazine carefully before starting your sewing project. Note that the patterns include all hem allowances, e.g. those at the bottom-hem edge of the garment, the bottom edges of the sleeves and the bottom edges of the legs.

Each double-page spread of the magazine includes a specification of the fabrics used for the sample garments displayed on those two pages. You can buy these fabrics in well-stocked fabric stores and online shops worldwide. You’ll find further information about the fabrics on the websites of their manufacturers, which are also mentioned in the magazine.

Fabrics featured in the magazine are also available in our OTTOBRE shop in Rovaniemi and in our online fabric store.