I’m going to walk you through everything I picked up while chasing 100% in Dressmaker. Most of the achievements hand themselves to you as you play the story, but there are a handful that you actually have to go out of your way for, and one of them is outright missable. If you’re here for those specific achievements and the small gameplay habits that make the rest go smoothly, this is for you.
I wrote this up because a few of these achievements are annoying for reasons the game doesn’t really explain — the trim one in particular drove me up the wall before I figured out a clean way to do it. Everything below is what actually worked for me, and I’ve flagged the one thing you genuinely can’t undo if you get it wrong.
General Gameplay Tips
Before the achievements themselves, a few habits and tricks that made the whole run easier. Most achievements are unmissable story ones you’ll get simply by progressing, so these tips are really about saving yourself time and frustration along the way. I’ve collected them from my own playthrough, and a couple of them I wish someone had told me earlier.
- Burlap is a free fabric you can use to prototype a dress. It’s great for visualising a design, since some dress patterns don’t look quite the same once they’re on the mannequin.
- You’ll unlock the ability to make off the rack dresses fairly early. It doubles as the game’s sandbox mode and is an excellent way to make money — sew a dress from your scraps or some cheap fabric and sell it to boost your cash.
- Alternatively, make dresses entirely out of burlap to sell off the rack. They won’t bring in quite as much, but the profit is 100% yours since the materials were free.
- You can change the speed of the sewing machine. Higher speeds are slightly harder to control, so be careful.
- If you don’t enjoy sewing or find it difficult, you can turn on sewing assist in the options menu. The game won’t penalise you for using it, and it will basically sew for you. Just be careful around sharp corners, since sewing assist sometimes handles those oddly.
- When placing multiple copies of the same accessory, hold Shift to keep placing without interruption.
- If a client wants an accessory you find ugly or that clashes with your design, you can hide it inside the dress’s skirts. Place it at the fullest part of the skirt and lower it as far as it will go, shrinking it too if needed. It should end up fully invisible while still counting toward the client’s requirements.
- Do the pigeon requests as soon as you get them. They don’t seem to expire, but they do give friendship, so knocking them out ASAP helps you unlock patterns faster for the main story.
- If you’ve got fabric or money to spare and want more friendship, you can also make a dress and give it to a character as a gift.
- You only need to measure each character once. After the first time, just press continue when the measuring menu appears and it’ll reuse your initial measurements.
- You can scrap a cut piece if you change your mind about which fabric to use. Take it off the mannequin with the seam ripper (the yellow tool in the bottom right corner) and put it back in your pattern tab. Then return to the fabric table and pick up the piece. A little fabric basket appears in the bottom right corner — drop your piece in there and it’ll be scrapped so you can cut it again.
- Don’t cut off fabric until you’re sure you’re going to use the pieces you cut. Scrapping a cut piece restores the fabric used, but ONLY if you haven’t cut it off yet. If you’ve already cut it off, that fabric is wasted.
The Achievements You Have to Work For
These are the only achievements in Dressmaker that require you to do something specific. Every other achievement unlocks in due course just by pursuing the main story. Sucker for Punishment is missable — you can lock yourself out of it — while all the others can be done whenever you feel like it.
| Achievement | What It Needs | My Rating |
|---|---|---|
| 99 Problems But A Stitch Ain’t One | 100% quality in a dress | Essential |
| Sucker for Punishment | Choose the leech in Vivian’s pigeon request | Essential (missable) |
| Birds of a Feather, Frock Together | Fulfil all of Berty’s requests | Optional |
| Opulence and Excess | Spend 5000 gold on a successful dress | Optional |
| Trim and Proper | 50 metres of trim on a single dress | Optional |
| Harder than it Seams | 300 accessories on one dress | Optional |
| Sew Long | Use the ruffle skirt in a dress | Optional |
99 Problems But A Stitch Ain’t One
This one asks for 100% quality in a dress, which sounds brutal but really isn’t. Make sure you fulfil all of the client’s requirements, lay down your patterns carefully to hit 100% grain, and sew carefully to reach 100% quality. The patience is in the sewing, not the setup.
Sucker for Punishment
This is the one to watch out for, because it’s missable. At some point Vivian will put in a pigeon request, and when she comes in she’ll start asking you about animals. You’ll get several options, but to unlock the achievement you need to choose the leech. Don’t worry if she reacts with disgust — despite her reaction, it won’t affect your relationship with her.
Birds of a Feather, Frock Together
After you complete Dorothy’s first commission, she gives you a pigeon named Berty. Berty will occasionally bring you requests from people who sit outside the main story, and for this achievement you have to fulfil all of them. From my own experience with the game these don’t seem to expire, but I’d still finish them ASAP — they help you build friendship levels, which feeds back into unlocking patterns.
Opulence and Excess
This one needs you to spend 5000 gold on a successful dress. I read “successful” as meaning a completed commission, though it may also work on an off-the-rack dress — I haven’t personally tested that. It’s easiest to knock out alongside the next two achievements, and here’s how I approached it. Load up on a ridiculous number of accessories, and expensive ones at that. Gemstones are the obvious pick, but brooches and certain trims work too. Put them anywhere you can think of, and pair it with the most expensive fabrics you can find.
One thing worth knowing: the game seems to calculate expenses based on the amount of fabric you actually used, not what you paid for it, so don’t try to cheat by buying loads of expensive silk and then not using it. It’s also best to put most of your value into accessories, since it’s much easier to keep a running total of those costs. If you’re creative you can build one of those dresses with a fancy gemstone picture on it — if you’re not, like me, just placing them wherever there’s space works fine too. As long as you meet the client’s requirements, they won’t care if it’s ugly.
Trim and Proper
Here you need 50 metres of trim on a single dress. This one’s a pain because trim works oddly in this game and is sometimes genuinely awkward to place. Instead of trying to track it with scraps, the cleanest method is to buy 50m of a brand-new trim and use the whole thing in one go. There’s no real way to make it pretty unless you’re very creative — just put it wherever it fits.
Harder than it Seams
Easiest to do at the same time as Opulence and Excess. You need to use 300 accessories on one dress. My recommendation: buy 300 gemstones and Shift-click them all over the dress until your arm falls off.
Sew Long
For this one you just have to use the ruffle skirt in a dress. That’s all it takes. It’s not difficult exactly, but the pattern uses a frankly greedy amount of fabric, and the sewing can drive you mad with monotony — so make sure you’ve got plenty of fabric and plenty of patience before you commit.
All Done!
That should be an easy 100% for you. This isn’t a difficult game, just a time-consuming one, and it’s very easy to get lost in designs — I found that out myself more than once. If you’ve got any further tips to offer, drop them in the comments and I’ll add them to the guide. I’ll update this if anything changes or new achievements get added. Happy sewing!