Tailoring for Women

I said good-bye to one of my assistants this week.  Having graduated with her second degree, an MA in arts administration from Goldsmiths College, she has to fill her suitcase and return to Japan.

Yukiyo (Sugiyama) spent almost 3 years of study and work experience here in the UK during which time she immersed herself in ballet, opera, theatre, museums and galleries.  She still somehow found time to help me in my studio, and in particular with planning my own Japanese trips.  She returns to Tokyo to run the new concert hall at the Ueno Gakuen (a music university in Tokyo) which came to prominence recently when one of its students,  Nobuyuki Tsujii, won the Van Cliburn Piano Competition.

To add to her souvenirs I thought that a light weight business suit would make a welcome change from her customary jeans and t-shirt.  This charcoal grey fresco suit will be ideal for those sticky summer Tokyo days with humidity levels you could cut with a knife (’fresco’ is a type of open weave used particularly for tropical suitings).  This particular fabric is cool to wear and also has a crease resistant quality that can withstand the most rigorous packing regimes!

Ganbatte. Good luck, Yukiyo.  We will miss you very much.

I had something of a surprise last week.  An unexpected visit to my Spitalfields studio  from one of the members of the Japanese Imperial Household.  It also gave me the chance to show the latest treasures in stock.  A selection of superb silk and wool tweeds prepared specially for me by Nicolas Guibauld at Holland & Sherry.

Silk is a natural protein fibre spun by the silkworm as it makes its cocoon…which is perhaps why moths aren’t particularly interested in it!  In cross section, the fibres have a triangular shape with rounded corners which allow light to reflect at different angles, giving the fabric a natural lustre.  Its smoothness and softness of texture belies the fact that it is one of the strongest natural fibres, and it also takes dye extremely well.  I believe also that violinists wrap their instruments in silk cloths in order to equalise in part any changes in humidity.

Holland & Sherry’s Silk Essence range is woven in England with Super 100’s wool.  When silk is included in the weave the natural qualities of the wool are enhanced immeasurably giving the fabric a unique drape and luxurious feel.  What is more, when silk is woven into patterns - dogtooth, herringbone, birdseye or glenchecks - it becomes almost irridescent.

They also stock a range of cashique fabrics; a very special treat indeed.  It’s made from a blend of the highest quality mulberry silk with cashmere and super-fine wool.  Definitely for the connoisseur.

It is not only the properties of the fabric itself however that lend to it its mystique.  It first began to appear in the West almost 2000 years ago and the trade routes that were established for the transport of silk and other commodities from China, the Silk Road, gave rise to a rich reservoir of stories and legends.

Everyone seems to have a ’silk’ story.  What is yours?

I think it was the blues singer Corey Harris who said,  “in order to know where you’re going, you have to know where you’ve been”.  Last week I spent some time re-visiting an old friend with a view to making a new one.

This knee length dress in wool crepe was commissioned last year.  It came from the first client via our TfW blog who wanted a simple elegant piece to make an impact during a special viewing at Christies; the international auctioneers of fine art.

As an inspiration she suggested looking at the French designer André Courrèges,  famous for producing immaculately tailored sporting clothes in the mid 60’s.  He became known as the socialites’ couturier, and his clients included the Begum Aga Khan, Princess Lee Radziwill, and the Duchess of Windsor.  His signature silhouette for a dress was an “A” shape that bypassed and concealed the waist.

This rich red dress is made from double wool crepe selected at Joel & Sons. The fabric has a deep texture that can be indented by topstitching, a technique similar to quilting that was favoured by Courrèges.

Wool crepe has a characteristic crinkled granular appearance produced both by the special type of yarn used, and the distinctive way in which it is woven.  It also dyes well in any range of deep jewel or soft pastel colours, with the texture of the fabric enhancing its hue.

This cloth has many attractive properties for a tailor or couturier.  From a design and construction perspective the relaxed weave allows a slight “give” in all directions, making it possible to shape and mold the cloth into sculptural lines that follow the contours of the body.  Newly developed stretch linings are compatable with an outer crepe layer to accommodate any movement.

For the wearer it creates a garment that is comforatable all year round.  It will also be durable, perfect for travel, easy to care for, and equally suitable for boardroom, day or evening wear.

There is a re-emerging trend for dresses as they seem to offer the ideal solution as an alternative to the more conventional skirt and jacket combination.  They are easy to accesorize and to wear with other separates.

Returning to our crimson friend above, in a short while it will return to the closet with a new companion to share the rail.

Following on from our Briefing for Bespoke: Fabric post I felt that it would be useful to highlight some of the things you should take into account when selecting a fabric. These will determine whether or not it is fit for purpose, giving consistent performance throughout a garment’s intended lifetime.

There are three sets of factors to think about:

• the inherent properties of the fabric
• comfort
• wear and tear

Properties

The properties of a fabric fall into seven different categories.

Cover is the first, and it relates to how well, or little, a fabric embraces a figure  for either concealment or warmth.  The more crimp in a fibre the better its covering properties, and as crimped fibres tend to cover more area, in the manufacturing process less raw product can be used which makes for a lighter weight fabric with less bulk.  The next category is colour fastness.  Quite a critical issue as over a period of time hue and intensity can fade as a result of exposure to sunlight or overly rigorous cleaning processes.

The outward surface of a fabric is known as the face and this is determined by the fibre length, fibre crimp, yarn structure, method of manufacture and finishing.  All of these influence whether or not the final result will be crisp and well defined, or something much softer.  Feltability is the way in which wool fibres matt together and it gives woolen fabrics body , firmness and stability.  The down side for felted fabrics is that they need extra care in their maintenance.

Different fabrics react to heat in different ways and this can produce alarming results particularly during the pressing process.  Heat sensitivity is something you should bear in mind particularly with man-made fabrics.  Interestingly, one of the ways in which we tell the difference between man-made and natural fabrics is to burn a small sample with a match and the resulting smell will give you an immediate indication of its composition.  With modern manufacturing processes man-made fabrics can mimic their natural counterparts so accurately that this test is not so out of place as it might first seem.

Luster refers to  the amount of light that reflects from the strands of the yarn and this can be affected by the length of the fibre, its cross-section, crimp and structure.  Fibres can be combined to give a hard gloss, soft luster, or dull matte appearance. The finish on a fabric can also affect the luster.

The last category is a fabric’s drape or stiffness.  This determines the degree of flow you require in a garment and whether or not you want to create something more structured or relaxed.

Comfort

Comfort concerns not only to the physical contact a fabric makes with the body, the feel, but also to the stretch which allows the wearer go move freely.  Two additional factors which are rarely considered are how a fabric reacts to moisture, and its electrical conductivity.

Their are three ways for assessing how a fabric might react to moisture. Porosity, absorbency and wicking.

Porosity relates to the ability for air or moisture  to pass through a fabric and  is determined by the tightness of the weave.  Ventile,  a fabric originally developed for RAF pilots in WWII to improve their chance of survival when forced to ‘ditch’ in Arctic seas during convoy duty, was also used by Sir Edmond Hillary’s Everest expedition.  Its construction was such that when the fabric becomes damp the fibres swell and tighten up preventing moisture penetration.

Absorbency is governed more by the  chemical and physical structures of the fibres and governs affecting how a fabric deals with matters such as perspiration, water repellency, colour fastness, shrinkage, spotting and static build-up.  Wicking is the way in which a fibre transfers moisture along its surface.  This has particular applications in sportwear by taking moisture away from the body to the outside of the garment where it more easily evaporates.

With electrical conductivity, although this can be influenced by the context in which the garment is worn, one of most uncomfortable experiences for the wearer is to find that their diaphonous gown has suddenly become figure hugging, and they they are both the recipient and giver of electrical shocks.  (If this is the case and you don’t have an anti-static shift to hand, rush for the body lotion and apply it to your undergarments!)

Wear and Tear

Finally, wear and tear.  This is caused largely by abrasion or over-stretching. As a rule of thumb the stiffer  the fabric the less able it is to withstand rubbing or chaffing.  Snagging is also a form of abrasion where individual yarns are caught and  pulled from the main body of the fabric.  The ability for a garment to return to its original shape as its elasticity diminshies also limits its life.  This can be caused by general use, or by the effect of chemicals or overheating during the cleaning process which can also affect both colour and composition.

For the next post we shall look forward to a brighter note with some tips for taking better care of your wardrobe

Photo: thanks to ChorLeoni & Everest News

When we take the decision to add a new tailored piece to our wardrobe, I wonder how many  people  consider the properties of the textile selected.  It seems to be more the case that we are driven by colour, pattern and style and neglect the nature of the chosen material and how it might perform.  This, along with the next set of posts, will be devoted to the properties, care and maintenance of  some of the main fabrics, and an exploration into  the fibres and weaves that determine their characteristics. We have been helped in this by Nicholas Guilbaud at Holland and Sherry, specialists in the high quality traditional fabrics used in bespoke tailoring.

First some basics.

Other than its initial impact, there are four main factors to consider when selecting a length of material.  The fibre, the nature of the fabric and its weave, the finish, and the mixture.

The fibre is the smallest perceivable element of a textile that is visible to the naked eye, and there are four main fibre shapes each with a unique cross-section.

• Flat-oval as found in types of cotton.

• Oval to round with overlapping scales such as medulla wool where its honeycomb-like core has minute air spaces

• Triangular with rounded edges as in silks or nylon

• Circular and uniform in diameter - fibres such as nylon, dacron or rayon.

The chemical composition of a fibre is determined by by either its natural or man-made origins. Natural fibres are either animal (wool, alpaca, camel, cashmere, mohair, vicuna, angora, silk), or vegetable (cotton, flax, linen, famie).  The image to the left shows wild silk fibres in magnification. Man-made fibres can be either cellulose based (viscose, rayon, cupramonium rayon, acetate) or non-cellulose ( Nylon, polyester, acrylic, olefin, spandex).  Fibres are spun into continuous threads called yarns which, according to the amount of twist, will influence its feel, absorbency, elasticity, lustre and strength.  Although there are are other factors that come into play, at base level the fibre from which a garment is made determines the way in which it should be cared for, hence the washing instructions on the label in mass produced clothes.

The next step up is to turn the yarns into fabric. There are two ways of doing this; weaving or knitting.  Most tailoring uses woven fabrics.  The weaving process relies on two simple elements, the warp and the weft; two sets of yarns running perpendicular to each other.  It It is the way in which these are combined, along with the tension within the yarn, that create all of the materials you see in a cloth merchants, from jaquards to tweeds.  When yarns are dyed individually, it is the weaving of them that give us tartans, stripes or plaids.  ‘Shot’ fabrics include a yarn that gives them an irridescence.

Here are examples of  three simple weaves: plain cotton, twill and satin.

There  are a number of different finishes used in the final preparation of the raw fabric.  The most obvious is the application of dye, although  as mentioned earlier the yarn can be dyed as a separate part of the process.  Colour is probably the most influential factor for a customer, and garment  manufacturers try to leave the process of dyeing as close to the final shipment of the fabric as possible.  Except for specially commissioned fabric runs, the pipeline between the fibre manufacture to the consumer can be as long as two years which can make it a highly speculative operation when placed alongside the dictats of the fashion industry.

So far we have looked at single content fabrics; silks, cottons, wools etc.  The final influencing factor however is the combination of fibres that might be used in a fabric, known also as mixture.  So for example, lining fabrics I have been working with recently  are a combination of viscose (95%) and lycra (5%).  This combines the robust, anti-static qualities of viscose with the stretch of lycra.

This should give you a basic outline of the basic elements of fabric design.  In the next post we will look at what you should expect from a fabric, how it performs.

Photo: thanks to Holland and Sherry, Olympusmicro and David Greenhalgh

“I like to have a hand in the creation of my clothes and as you might expect from my work at Sotheby’s colours and textures play an integral role in my day to day life, and I wanted something a little different from my usual business clothes.”

“Sourcing the fabric is part of the fun, and Carol arranged for me to visit some of her preferred suppliers, some in Soho, and one in particular in Edgware; Joel’s.  The fabric I returned with was a French silk chiffon, vibrant lime shot with bright orange/gold!  Apparently chiffons have different weaving processes and unlike Italian chiffon, which is quite sheer, the French version retains the natural blemishes in the fabric adding to its character…almost like the brush stroke on a canvas if you like.”

“The next step is to sit down and decide how it will all fit into the design on which we have been working.  I really enjoy being a part of this process”

With my first trip to Japan to research the design of the ‘kimono‘ imminent, our latest commission couldn’t have been more appropriate.

These are samples from an elegant dress we created recently for the Minister of Culture at the Japanese Embassy, Minister Mizutori, (now Director of Finance for the Japanese Foreign Ministry).  The garment was required for the formal ceremony at Buckingham Palace when the new Ambassador, Shin Ebihara, presented his credentials to Her Majesty, The Queen.

Minister Mizutori is a prominent figure in Japanese diplomatic circles and she is widely acknowledged as having achieved much by the innovative ways in which she has promoted Japanese culture in the UK.

There are certain protocols that have to be observed when dressing for this kind of event such as the length of sleeves, acceptable décolté , and how to fit in with other attendees.  Also, the fact that it was during the middle of the day made for a brief with some additional challenges.

We have quite an exclusive list of suppliers for our specialist suitings, however whenever we receive a commision for something out of the ordinary we turn to Joel & Son Fabrics.   Situated just north of Marble Arch in Central London, they have the most extensive range of printed silks and beaded lace that you can find almost anywhere.

Alongside, they have a wide selection of materials with which you can co-ordinate your garment. They also have a wealth of advice as to how to match the properties of a particular cloth with a garment’s design or purpose.   There reputation is such that they are frequently required to source and supply fabrics for many a State occasion.

We have worked together for the past 20 years and I frequently send my clients direct to their premises where Joel’s staff are extremely helpful, and will take time to make this first exploration part of the whole bespoke experience.