What is the first thing to do in Dressmaker?

Take a commission from a townsperson, plan the dress in the sketchbook, buy fabric, cut on grain or bias, preview on the mannequin, sew, decorate, and deliver. That loop is the whole game’s core, per the official description.

How do I earn money in Dressmaker?

Delivering dresses earns reputation and coin, per the official description. You can also sell finished, off-the-rack dresses from your shop window.

What does sabotage do in Dressmaker?

The store page says you can "satisfy (or sabotage!)" townsfolk, but publishes no mechanical detail. Sabotage effects are Unconfirmed — anything more specific would be a guess.

Which fabric should a beginner buy?

The game publishes no per-fabric stats, so there is no official answer. Editorial suggestion (subjective, based on real-world character): cotton and linen for everyday commissions, silk and velvet when the occasion sounds grand.

How do I get 100% quality on a dress?

The achievement "99 Problems But A Stitch Aint One" confirms that dresses have a measurable quality percentage, but no official source publishes the exact inputs. Plan carefully in the sketchbook, cut deliberately, and decorate with intent.

Dressmaker Game Guide: Beginner Walkthrough & First Commission

Dressmaker beginner’s guide

Dressmaker hands you a dress shop and lets you run every step of it yourself. This guide walks the complete commission loop exactly as the official Steam description lays it out — nothing here is guessed, and where the game keeps a secret, we say so.

Facts checked September 29, 2026Reading time 5 min readEvidence cited per claim

Your first commission, start to finish

Townsfolk come to you with occasions and personal tastes, and you deliver dresses. Every step below is player-controlled, per the official description.

Take a commission

Townsfolk commission dresses for important occasions and their own personal tastes. Ten named customers — Adora, Alice, Dorothy, Edith, Fiona, Marie, Priya, Prudence, Rose and Vivian — each have a major-commissions storyline, per their achievements.

Plan in the sketchbook

Design and colour the dress in your sketchbook first: pin fabric swatches and appliqué ideas there before you spend a single coin on cloth.

Buy fabric

The shop stocks a wide range of fabrics. The official description names cotton, linen, wool, silk and velvet — the full list and per-fabric prices are Unconfirmed.

Arrange and cut the patterns

Lay out the pattern pieces and cut on the grain or the bias — the cut you choose shows in the finished garment. Each panel can be cut from a different fabric.

Preview on the mannequin

Check the pattern on the mannequin before sewing. This is your last cheap chance to catch a layout you dislike.

Sew it together

Feed your fabric through the sewing machine and assemble the garment panel by panel.

Decorate

Add buttons, bows, appliqué and lace trims — placement is completely free, so finishing touches are where a dress becomes yours.

Deliver and get paid

Hand over the dress to earn reputation and coin. Delivered quality matters: one achievement is earned by hitting 100% quality on a dress.

Beginner advice that will not steer you wrong

These follow directly from the confirmed mechanics — no superstition, no invented stats.

Satisfy the brief before you improvise

Commissions exist to satisfy the customer’s occasion and taste. Read the request, plan the dress around it in the sketchbook, and only then add your own flair.

Watch the style tags

Dresses and requests interact through style tags, so matching the requested style is the reliable route to a happy customer. Exact tag effects are not officially published — treat the tags as directions, not numbers.

Mix fabrics panel by panel

Each panel can be cut from a different fabric, so a silk bodice over a wool skirt is a legal move. What each fabric does mechanically is Unconfirmed — experiment and watch the result.

Grain or bias is a visible choice

The official description is explicit that how you cut shows in the finished dress. If a silhouette looks off, revisit the cutting table before blaming the sewing machine.

Decorate deliberately

Decorations are free-form, and one achievement (Harder than it Seams) asks for over 300 accessories on a single dress — so excess is possible. For paying customers, aim for quality: 100% quality on a dress is its own achievement.

Pet the kitty

The store page says so, and who are we to argue.

Selling off the rack

Commissions are only half the shop. You can also display finished dresses in your shop window and sell off-the-rack designs directly — a way to turn practice pieces and experiment dresses into coin without waiting for the right customer to walk in.

Where these facts come from

This site is built from two official sources: the Steam store listing and Steam’s global achievement statistics. Everything they state is quoted or paraphrased with the source cited; anything neither source states — fabric stats, customer personalities, hidden achievement conditions — is marked Unconfirmed rather than filled in.

Official Dressmaker on Steam (app 4019220) — The official store listing. Source of the release date (September 21, 2026), the $14.99 price, Windows/Mac support, language support (English, Simplified Chinese and Japanese with full audio), the single-player/casual-simulation classification, the named fabrics (cotton, linen, wool, silk, velvet), the decoration types (buttons, bows, appliqué, lace trims), the sketchbook, mannequin, grain/bias cutting, window-display and "satisfy (or sabotage!)" mechanics, and the official system requirements.

Official Dressmaker — Steam global achievement statistics — Steam’s official global achievement stats for app 4019220, read September 2026. Source of the full 32-achievement list, each achievement’s official description (where one is published — hidden achievements show none) and the global unlock percentages quoted across this site.