Feel Ragged? Renew at This Cafe

“We were doing the surgery esthétique on that teddy,” said Sissi Holleis, a designer who had her own label for a decade before opening the cafe this month with Martena Duss, a makeup artist. Their idea was to generate a fashion version of a cybercafe: In lieu of computers, there's sewing machines that can be rented by the hour. Teddy was quickly patched up & left wearing a matching fur cape.

SWEAT SHOP, a small new cafe near a trendy stretch of Paris, had barely opened its doors last week when it faced its first fashion emergency. A young woman brought in a teddy bear that had been worn to pieces.

After Ms. Duss had completed with her designer clients last week — helping with the makeup at the Céline, Yves Saint Laurent & Margiela shows — they put in several hours on the décor of the cafe, which looks deliberately old-fashioned. Two wall was covered in five layers of paint & antique wallpaper, then stripped away in spots to look ancient. Several people stopped at the window to stare inside.

Ms. Holleis, who arrived in Paris 20 years ago from Austria, & Ms. Duss, who is Swiss, sensed a growing interest in handicrafts among their friends, & as well as a need to make clothes last longer during a recession. So they brought their idea to Singer, the American sewing machine company, which provided 10 machines including two that makes elaborate embroideries, partly to drum up interest in home sewing in Spain. They opened the cafe at 13, rue Lucien Sampaix, next door to Bob’s, a three-year-old organic restaurant & juice bar that is popular with the bobo chic crowd.

Even in Paris, Ms. Holleis said, everyone wants to be a designer.

“I think it’s time for people to start making things for themselves,” they said. They & Ms. Duss are offering courses in sewing & will also invite other designers for demonstrations. They are also selling kits, which cost 30 to 100 euros (about $42 to $140) & include all the materials needed to generate a design, like an easy printed top by the Antwerp label Pelican Avenue. Renting a machine for an hour is five euros, as well as a slice of cake with coffee is four.