Sewing machine & coffee break ♥

Sweat Shop Cafe in Paris: Rent a sewing machine by the hour, learn a new skill while sipping espresso or munching on herb-laden Finnish cake. Opened by a Swiss make up artist and an Austrian fashion designer. Imagine 10 work stations equipped with 10 Singer sewing machines and one central communal table. Next time that I go to Paris I'll go and visit this Cafe. This so clever, love the idea. Users can purchase access to a Singer sewing machine – six euros an hour – and come to classes in the evening if they want to improve, for example, their knitting or customising skills. The idea, say the owners, is to reconnect people with the joys of sartorial DIY.

If the project succeeds in Paris, where handicraft is largely absent from the education system and still suffers from connotations of hippiedom and dowdiness, perhaps it could catch on elsewhere. Manchester, and London, maybe?

"There's a crowd for it," Inside the room on the left, a counter of cakes stands alluringly in the Parisian sunshine, and the Singers sit on tables ready to whirr.

Click here to see the address.