Tailoring for Women

After all the time spent planning, the day arrived  to give my presentation at the Victoria & Albert Museum.  Regular readers of the TfW blog will know that this was something originally put forward as a proposal almost eight months ago, so it was a super feeling to be standing in front of a packed and appreciative audience.  Fortunately I had the presence of mind to have it filmed.

My task was to open the seminar, which was beautifully hosted by the V&A’s Head of Adult Education, Jo Banham.  Following this was an intriguing presentation by Jaeger.  This year is their 125^th anniversary and it was wonderful to see some of the pieces and pictures from their archive.  I have a couple of vintage Jaeger pieces myself dating from the time Jean Muir was their designer and I treasure them.

Following this, Alan Cannon Jones, Senior Lecturer at the London College of Fashion talked about some of the new trends in tailored fashion, and some of the techniques that are used to support them.

The video attached to this post gives an edited version of my own contribution.  There were also a number of Q&A points throughout the seminar and I plan to include some of the issues that were raised in future posts.

The topics I covered ranged from a whistle-stop tour of the history of women’s tailoring to an exploration of the practical skills that support it.  This included the consideration of the physiological aspects, hand-crafting techniques, and the complex psychology that underlies the relationship with one’s client.   I concluded with some thoughts around the future of women’s tailoring with reference to a statement I had compiled from the opinions of my clients.

“Women should have same the opportunities for investing in their wardrobes in the same way that they invest in their careers”

I hope that you don’t have too many problems with the download.

I am afraid that the blog posts had to take a slight seat to oneside over the past couple of weeks.  The V&A seminar,  an invitation to speak on the BBC’s iconic radio programme Woman’s Hour, and a new commision from the King’s Singers have all given life an added spice just in time for Christmas.  That is excluding the daywear pieces I have had to see through for my regular clients.

I don’t know why, but there appears to be a resurgence in the orders for daydresses amongst my clients.  This one will be sent off to Amsterdam in the next couple of days.

It makes a change from the 2-pc jacket with trousers or skirt, maybe due to the use of the dress as an alternative to stretch the wardrobe.

The lure of the daydress is its practicality.  It can be as versatile as a suit, and its sense of tailored femininity gives a figure enhancing simplicity.

I see the advantage in its flexibility;

• can be worn from day to evening
• is easily accommodated and accessorised with staple garments
• comfortable, with less fit and constriction at the waist
• with colour and detail it can enhance proportions

It has an inbuilt convenience too when it comes to travelling; much easier to pack than a suit.

And there are many variations;

• Shirtwaist, a dress with a bodice (waist) like a tailored shirt and an attached straight or full skirt
• Sheath, a fitted, often sleeveless dress, often without a waistseam (1960s)
• Shift, a straight dress with no waist shaping or seam (1960s)
• Jumper dress (American English) or Pinafore dress (British English) is a sleeveless dress intended to be worn over a layering top or blouse. Jumper dresses exist for both summer and winter wear.
• Sundress is an informal sleeveless dress of any shape in a lightweight fabric, for summer wear.
• Tent, a dress flared from above the bust, sometimes with a yoke (1960s, renewed popularity after 2005)
• Maxi dress, a long, formfitting, floor or ankle length dress.
• Wrap dress, a dress with a front closure formed by wrapping one side across the other and knotting the attached ties on the side, or fastening buttons. This forms a V-shaped neckline and hugs a woman’s curves. A faux wrap dress resembles this design, except that it comes already fastened together with no opening in front, but instead is slipped on over the head. (1970s; renewed popularity from late 1990s)

Here is something with a wholly different sense of ‘attitude’ which was commissioned from me during my time at Hardy Amies.

I feel that a tailored daydress is a very good start when planning a wardrobe, and also a welcome addition to a set of staple garments already in place.

We reached a milestone recently.  One that you helped to create. For just over a year we have been writing about tailoring for women, and it is incredible to see how our audience has grown.  Our goal was to try to create a hub of information that addressed some of the prevailing practical issues for women when it comes to selecting tailored clothing, and to help you make better informed decisions.  Judging from our Google rankings it has reached way beyond our initial expectations…and cultural boundaries.

From India to Canada interest has been stimulated, and not only amongst our immediate client base.  Discussions have been opened with other craftspeople from the trade, a regular stream of apprentices and work experience students has materialised, opportunities for exchanges between clients and non-clients have been created, and our blog has acted as a talking point for several internet based forums.

This resource has also led to the creation of a number of opportunities for extending our business.  In September we will be visiting clients in New York City, October will see a feature in National Westminster Bank’s ‘Sense‘ magazine, and in November we have the exciting opportunity of opening the seminar on women’s tailoring at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London alongside Jaeger and Evie Belle.  As a result we have received mentions in the online magazines for both Vogue and Elle, and the influential Fashion United blog.

Some of our most popular items to date have been Dressing the Fuller Figure, Restore, Refurbish, Restyle, Resurrect, Remodel…and the A Word, Variations on a Seam, Folding a Jacket, and more recently Trouser Roles.  The credit crunch too stimulated a number of posts, and there appears a regular stream of visitors to the more technically based features in Briefing for Bespoke.

So, thank you all for making this possible, and finally, do let us know if there are any subjects you feel we are missing!

Photo: thanks to Media Bistro

Were you aware that the Asian elephant was under threat? Because of the loss of its natural habitat, a result of expanding human populations, the number of wild Asian elephants is plummeting. The area they once inhabited stretched from the far corners of China, through Thailand, Indonesia, India and across Syria; some 3.5 million square miles and about the size of Canada. It has now shrunk to some 170,000 square miles - less than the size of Spain. I learned this at a special celebrity  launch reception for the charity Elephant Family held by one of my clients, Wendy Senturier, earlier this week.

What a special event it was; approximately 200 guests including celebrities such as Joanna Lumley and the Duchess of York. (It was covered by the London Evening Standard a few days later), The outcome of this initiative should be seen some time next year around the streets of London. The star auction items were a herd of 200  2-metre high, hand-made elephants which will be decorated, and  placed at a number of locations around the capital. The target is £1 million in order to secure land in Asia to create an elephant sanctuary, and the event made a significant contribution to this.

I am fortunate to have such a list of intriguing clients, and Wendy particularly so. She runs a highly regarded networking service for the international community with offices in London, Geneva, Hong Kong and Singapore. For this event, I created this sleeveless dress with a cutaway neckline from a silk chiffon print by Roberto Cavalli, a favourite designer of Wendy’s. This print was especially complex because of the juxtaposition of pearls, lace, animal print and floral motifs. With a brief of this nature it can take some time to understand the fabric thoroughly and all its design possibilities. In fact I hung the the whole length high up along a wall in my studio and lived with it for some time before I made the first cut. It’s always an interesting challenge to work within the constraints of a fixed length of print fabric; technically tricky too, when trying to match printed patterns on such a fragile silk weave.

Keep your eyes peeled next year around May to July when the results of this fundraiser will be seen around the streets of London. You can catch a flavour from a similar event that took place in Amsterdam earlier this year at http://www.elephantparade.com/. We wish the charity every success. As we know…an elephant never forgets.

Photo: thanks to Elephant Family

Last week saw more coverage about ‘Austerity Britain’.  In particular,  how people were looking to revitalise long forgotten skills.  BBC TV’s Newsnight had people talking about reinvigorating the clothes in their wardrobes,  the Independent issued a supplement in their New Good Life series (Making and Mending - Sewing, knitting and darning), and the Financial Times ran a page about the rise in the sales of sewing machines and haberdashery.

I visited a number of my favourite suppliers here in London and they all confirmed how there had been an upsurge in interest,  although as Martyn Frith of the Button Queen commented,  “this was their third recession over 50 years, so it was not entirely unexpected”.

• The Button Queen: Established for over 50 years with a collection of some 2 million buttons, including rare antiques.  They will source special requirements.
• MacCulloch & Wallis: Great selection of millinery items in addition to an extensive selection of fabrics and trimmings,  all within a listed building in Mayfair.
• Kenton Trimmers:  Family business that caters specifically for the bespoke tailor.
• V V  Rouleaux: Out of the ordinary, theatrical trimmings and decorations.

A little while ago we ran a post about the fashion industry and how it had spawned a rash of cheap clothing much of which ended up in our land fill sites after only a couple of outings.  It is a welcome move forward that people are now looking to remodel and recycle.  Unfortunately,  because of the structuring of mass-produced garments this is not always as straightforward as it seems.  With some new designs, compromises are made in the make, and in the use of cloth and trimmings - and seams have a tendency to autodestruct at the slightest hint of a repair kit!

Nonetheless, I am all for ‘making do and mending’.  In fact it has given me great pleasure recently to work with one of my clients, a medical consultant, who wanted to have a hand in sharpening up her tailored wardrobe, and adapting it more to her own changing tastes and body shape. Ultimately she would like to learn more about basic tailoring, extending her creative skills set as well as the life of her garments, and at the same time adding some personal touches to her wardrobe.

Recently a number of my clients have said that they are beginning to lose track of some of the topics we have covered over the past sixth months, so I thought that the time was right to give you a speedy overview.  And if any of you have comments as to how we might better arrange the categories for the blog posts I am open to suggestions.

In the current categories, over to the right of the screen, you will find Briefing for Bespoke. This is intended as a resource to which you can turn whenever you want to know more about going the bespoke route, and how to make the best of the many choices available. There are posts about Colour Analysis, the Psychology of Appearance, Proportion, and some practical tips about fabrics and the different ways in which they perform. We also touch on care and maintainance and even suggest a novel way to fold a jacket.

One of my clients mentioned that it would be helpful to know more about the bespoke process from initial consultation to final delivery, so we will be adding this in shortly.

Elsewhere we have included some novelty pieces about the rule of thumb and how it applies to simple systems of proportional measurement, and quite a number of posts tied into my trip to Japan last year; Happi coats, Kimonos and Kabuki costumes. And just a few items about my clients who range from the world of finance, both commercial and governmental, to performers such as Ute Lemper and Gil Shaham.  It was wonderful too, to be able to talk about the British Olympic Shooting Team for whom I made all their shooting jackets (picture above).  A high performance garment for a high performance team.

If any of you have suggestions for posts for the next six months, let us know.

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

Tailoring has a long and intriguing history, and over time it has developed its own unique methodologies and practices.  This post is the first of a series, Briefing for Bespoke, which will chart some of the things it might be helpful for you to know.  It will include topics such as the psychology of appearance, cut, proportion, use of colour, business versus fashion, culture and clothes, and many others.

As you may have seen in the  press recently (although from its imagery I don’t think that the Mail subscribes to the Hemline Theory of Economy, nor do I think it helped with furthering the cause of the serious business woman) companies such as Ernst & Young are taking the matter of how to dress qutie seriously, and in these financially challenging times one can understand only too well how important it is to leverage up any element that has been allowed to fall by the wayside.   Whilst  non-business needs are amply covered by the fashion houses and high streets, there remains a considerable dilemma for those in the business environment.  Anne Freden, chair of Ernst and Young’s women’s network, was quoted by a number of journalists when she expressed how women often found it difficult to know what clothes were acceptable at work.

I feel that the first step is to take a considered look at some of the practical advice that is around and give a measured distillation of what is available in a form that will suit both the needs and lifestlye of those of you that are in the frontline.  I think also that there is a place for some down to earth information about ways in which you can care for your garments, and what new materials or accessories are appearing that will make  life a little easier and enable you to dress with confidence.  This is the purpose of the posts, and I hope that you will feel able to supplement or perhaps challenge some of the comments that will be uploaded.

By way of a taster, I have included alongside this post a simple illustration of an original and highly practical way in which you might fold a tailored jacket ready for travel.

I will leave the last word with Anne Freden who undoubtedly sees the matter of dress as integral to their extensive programme of workshops designed to promote the E&Y women’s network and help women to maximise their potential as a part of the corporate identity policies of her organisation. “The firm doesn’t view this as something that is nice to have, but as an integral part of the business strategy.”

Photo: With CCL

There are a number of significant differences between the techniques needed to tailor a garment for a women and those for a man. That is not to say however that they are completely different entities.  There are indeed many areas of crossover and this is one such example.

John Reed, who demonstrates this ingenious and original method of folding a jacket, entered the trade some 65 years ago and was a City & Guilds medallion winner.  He is also one of the many personalities that helps define the character of the Savile Row community.

Original footage: Thanks to Naoki Kawamoto Design

Welcome to Tailoring for Women; a service dedicated to the wardrobe requirements of professional women, supported by a community of craftspeople working in the art of Savile Row.  Register below for our newsletter to keep up to date with comment, guidance and opinions, or include our RSS feed in your preferred reader. You can also connect to me on LinkedIn.