Tailoring

Eliza Wyke / Tailoring
January 30, 2020
in Style, Tailoring

Late last year I had the privilege to bring to life a bride’s extraordinary vision.  She presented me with a rough sketch of her design and several bags of remnant / scraps of materials, beads, braiding and chiffon flowers.  From a large mound of fabrics (my cutting table overflowed!), I created a boned bodice, circular skirt (although for that we did buy extra fabric!), and a splendid train.  The bride, an artist, had amassed this collection of trims and fabrics over a number of years and from various trips abroad,...

January 22, 2020
in Fashion History & Exhibitions, Tailoring

Mary Quant:  Grand Dame of modern fashion has been enjoying a long overdue and well deserved exhibition of her work spanning the period 1955 to 1975 at London's V&A Museum.  This exhibition highlights how she revolutionised fashion in the 1960s.  Designing easy to wear, practical clothes, for the modern, and ever increasing numbers of, working women.  Her deigns moved away from the formality of the couture-bound 1950s, where daughters would follow their mother's to her dressmaker (and look like a mini-version of them), into a new sphere of fast fashion. ...

June 17, 2019
in Fashion History & Exhibitions, Occasion Dressing, Style, Tailoring

Last week during a trip to Milan, I had the good fortune to find time to visit the Armani / Silos permanent exhibition.  The exhibition opened in 2015 to mark the 40th anniversary of Mr Armani’s designs.  Two floors of permanent exhibiting space house the designer’s creations over the 40-year period, curated into three themes:  Androgynous, Ethnicities and Stars.  The first floor explores the themes of Androgyny.  In which he identifies the jacket as an everyday must-have item, which indeed it is, and this space pairs menswear and womenswear together. ...

July 6, 2018
in Style, Tailoring

Staying stylish during a heatwave can be problematic.  Here in Blightly we're simply not used to the temperatures.  For most of us, if we're fortunate, a week in the sun each year means shorts and vest tops, worn year after year, and which simply aren't suitable for working life at home.  Whilst I'm fortunate enough to work for myself, meaning that jeans make up the cornerstone of my wardrobe, sometimes even I concede they have to take a back seat.  This prolonged heatwave being a case in point; it's simply...