Making money in Dressmaker

Commissions pay twice (an advance, then a completion bonus), but the real economy is off-the-rack dresses. Once unlocked, after your first three commissions, every dress you sell profits. The only question is how hard you multiply it.

The formula

(Materials + sewing time) × ((Quality + Prestige - 100) / 100) = sell price

/Materials: the value of what went into the dress. Expensive fabric and accessories push it up.
/Quality: your build, up to a 150% multiplier. Cut on grain, sew cleanly.
/Prestige: your shop rank, also up to 150%. It rises as you play, so money gets easier.
/Worked example from a community guide: 500 gold of materials at 150 quality and 110 prestige sells for about 805 gold.

The build everyone uses

Burlap is free, so every gold of accessory value is pure margin. Players make a strapless top and pencil skirt from burlap, hold Shift, and stack cut diamonds until the dress value explodes. Reported results: around 100,000 gold in twenty minutes at high prestige, and one documented 1,000-diamond dress selling for 44,000. Two or three of these fund every commission in the story.

The same trick doubles as the Opulence and Excess route (5,000 gold of material in one successful dress) and Harder than it Seams (300 accessories on one dress). One absurd dress, three achievements.

Smaller habits that add up

/Burlap is free and the only fabric tagged Uncomfortable. It drags most other tags down, so use it for prototypes and money dresses, not for picky clients.
/For 18 of the 22 style tags, the best-scoring fabric is on sale from the start, usually a 10g cotton or wool. Expensive velvet mostly looks nicer.
/A fabric's tag score is weighted by dress part, not by area: skirt 40%, bodice 35%, sleeves 15%, collar 10%. Rules written as “at least X% of a fabric” go by area instead, where the skirt dominates.
/Off-the-rack dresses unlock after your first three commissions, through the sketchbook. Selling them always profits because the formula multiplies materials and time by your quality and prestige bonuses.
/To peek at a commission dress's sell value, press sell, read the number, then cancel. Do not confirm.