Restyling & Refashioning at the V&A

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Andrea Nixon (Steed Bespoke Tailors)... who was this years Rising Star Winner in The 2009 Golden Shears tailoring competition, has been selected along with the other winners to exibit their garments at the world famous Victoria & Albert Musuem (V&A), in London.

They're setting up a tailoring studio, where they will be exibiting their work. Also they will be offering advice to anyone that is interested in tailoring and how to restyle and recycle their wardrobe.

This is part of the "Restyling and Refashioning" event day, taking place on Saturday, 14th November 2009. It is being held in the Sackler Centre, of the V&A, between 10:30am and 4:00pm, and is free to the genaral public, some activities are ticket.

This reinforces what we were discussing in our previous post, with today's society of "Make do and Mend".

There are various events taking place throughout the day, including guest speakers advising people on updating their wardrobes. One of the attractions is a major Clothes Swap/Swishing event. This is a new craze which is becoming very popular. The basic idea, is that people take clean, good quality clothes and accessories, which they no longer want, and swap them with people for garments that they do want. There is no money involved and people should go away with new clothes that they really want!

On the day Andrea will be exhibiting her jacket and skirt that came third place in the Golden Shears competition, and received the Rising Star Award, March 2009. The competition is organised by The Merchant Taylors Company.

Andrea's entry for the contest was completly bespoke, especially since she designed, dyed the yarns and hand wove the cloth for the garments herself. The cloth is made from lambs wool and cotton, so it has a nice soft drape and feel to it, which goes hand in hand with the Steed House Style. The colour of the cloth is rich teal green, which helps give a luxury look to the outfit. The entries were marked on design, cutting, tailoring and style. The judges for the competition included David Furnish, Caryn Franklin, Patrick Grant, Marek Reichman and James Sherwood.

In the tailoring studio, Andrea will be able to explain to visitors how she made the pieces from beginning to end. She has step by step photographs showing the process, to make it easier for people to see the development of the making procedure. This will be interesting for people to see as some very complex techniques are involved. As the jacket will also be there on display people will be able to examine the time consuming details that adorn the jacket, such as beading around collar, lapels, and belt, along with the hand dyed silk lining.

Make Do And Mend

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With the recession taking its toll, people are saving their pennies on the fashion front and turning to S.I.Y. (Sew it Yourself), for a whole new wardrobe. S.I.Y. being the modern day term for "make do and mend".

Sales of sewing machines are up and an attitude of make do and mend seems to be sweeping the nation. Tesco Direct recently revealed sales of sewing machines have increased by 198% compared to this time last year and the number of people appling for Sewing classes at local colleges and night schools has also seen a sharp increase.

All this sudden interest in the trade can only have a good affect on the rest of us, in terms of people deciding, they might want to come into the trade or just take a keen interest and learn more by visiting the forums that we have mentioned in previous posts. We have seen evidence of this interest, by the increase in the number of CV's that we have recieved of late, asking about potential apprenticeships.

Although this is the case, we have had our best year to date, since Steed started back in January 1995, to the effect of the amount of regular emails and phone calls that we recieve, enquiring about our services at the top end of the market.

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The Norfolk Jacket

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Recently, there has been a bit of interest in Norfolk Jackets and we have also had a few enquiries, after seeing the one we made for a customer in Boston 2 or 3 years ago.

We found this picture (right) that we took in our Carlisle shop, when we typed in Norfolk jackets in google and it came up first on Google Images. The image has also surfaced on other Internet forums and blogs.

Not actually sure how it got on there but nevertheless it has received wide interest and nice comments as seen on the blog Wasp 101.

There are a number of variations of the jacket and a brief description of the Norfolk is below, as found on Wikipedia.

"A Norfolk jacket is a loose, belted, single-breasted jacket with box pleats on the back (and sometimes front), now with a belt or half-belt. The style was long popular for boys' jackets and suits, and is still used in some (primarily military and police) uniforms. It was originally designed as a shooting coat that did not bind when the elbow was raised to fire."

It was named either for the Duke of Norfolk or for the county of Norfolk and was made fashionable after the 1860s in the sporting circle of the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII whose country residence was Sandringham House in Norfolk.
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Welcome Back London Lounge

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Here at Steed..we would like to welcome back Michael Alden and The London Lounge,

After a brief time away, the site has just re-launched and is still having a few teething problems but they are currently being ironed out. (excuse the pun)

For those of you who haven't come across The London Lounge before, it is a Forum "dedicated to the discussion of the Bespoke Arts". To quote from the site it's self.

It's founder Michael Alden has managed to bring together many Artisans of the world of Bespoke and the general public who take a keen interest in the wonderful world of Bespoke Artistry or just want to learn more about it and whether or not they should delve into it.

Also with features on Sartorial vacations and Elegant living, where members discuss the finer things in life.

Within the forum members have the chance to ask questions to Artisans like myself, about all kinds of subjects within Bespoke Tailoring and also chat with other members about their past experiences with Bespoke and perhaps about what they have planned in the future in terms of future commissions and so forth. .. .. .
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Another feature of The London Lounge which Michael has created to a fantastic response is the London Lounge Cloth Club.

To quote the Forum again.. "The Cloth Club is not a cloth merchant. It is the collaborative effort of LL members led by the site’s founder, Michael Alden, whose primary purpose is to design, and organize the production and delivery of high quality, traditional fabrics intended for use in bespoke tailoring."

How this works is the Cloth Club products are organised into subscriptions and where there is enough interest for a particular cloth by enough LL members it will be sent to a competent weaver where the design will be studied and then put into production once the design has been confirmed and is satisfactory to the members.

The good thing about this is that LL members themselves along with Michael all put their ideas and concepts together to create beautiful cloths for themselves which will in turn be made up into fantastic looking clothes by Artisans such as myself and tailors around the world from Savile Row, Naples, Australasia, North America and even the Far East.

Here at Steed we have made a number of Limited Edition London Lounge Cloths created by the Cloth Club and they all make up beautifully as you can see in the pictures to the right, we have the LL Shetland which we have made a lovely Sports Jacket and the new Eden in Paris cloth also pictured looks as though will be another success of the Cloth Club. ..
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In fact my son Matthew was given a length as a gift
from a very genrous customer of ours, which he will be making up for himself very shortly and will be his first Bespoke Suit that he will cut by himself, which you will be able to follow on the blog as he goes through each stage of the making up, from the Pattern he will draft to the cutting of the cloth, the fitting stage and then of course the end product.
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So please do, if you havent already take a look at the site though the links provided.
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Mixing Business With Pleasure

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Matthew and I have decided to do a business trip to Glasgow, though we do have ulterior motives...we have tickets to watch Arsenal play Celtic that night at Celtic Park, in a Champions league qualifier.
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We're both avid Arsenal fans and we saw this as a great opportunity to visit Glasgow and take in what should be a terrific Champions league game with an electric atmosphere which is synonymous with European games at Celtic Park.

We are going to be at the Regus Business Centre, from 1pm till 5pm & have a wide selection of cloths, including a new range of exciting tweeds & cashmere.
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Regus
69 Buchanan Street
Glasgow
G1 3HL
Scotland
Main tel: +44 (0) 141 314 3737

If anyone is interested in making an appointment,

please call us on:

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01228 599 555

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or email edwin@steed.co.uk

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www.steed.co.uk

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