Man is a Political Animal, Clothes Maketh the Man

It's all about politics today, and they have roused me from my blogging torpor. There's much ado about apathy, and the fact that two thirds of people did not vote and seemingly don't care, which is exactly how evil steals a march, when the rest of us roll over (to paraphrase Edmund Burke, being quoted widely thanks to UKIP's success at the polls). A kick to the consciousness of the main parties here in Great Britain was overdue, but writing in the capacity of my own opinion (I voted, I'm entitled to one), how about getting at them by boosting the Green Party or the - as yet limited availability - brand new Reality Party? It was launched last month in Manchester on April 29th by founder Bez, p.k.a. maracas master, interpretive dancer and ambience co-ordinator from the Happy Mondays, while wearing his Bedlam t-shirt.

Bez launching the Reality Party (Photograph by Elspeth Moore)

They may have come third with their candidate in Salford, but a mere twenty-three votes behind the Conservatives.

Honorary Bedlamite Jacky Carroll ordered Bez one of our "God Save the Queen" bee-shirts for his 50th birthday present - he is a keen apiarist apparently, these days, so we hope he proves to be a new breed of pollentician. Here she is presenting it at his party:

Photographs by Elspeth Moore (to whom, many thanks)

He was by all accounts delighted, as were we to receive this fabulous photograph:

Loving your country without stomping on everyone else ought to be an achievable human goal. We received an interesting commission lately, to design a curtain for the foyer of the Bermondsey Square Hotel http://www.bermondseysquarehotel.co.uk, and its other side was to coordinate with their "GB Bar & Grill". This weekend (Saturday May 24th) the Daily Telegraph (winners of the Best Travel Website award) included them in their Fab Five hotels on the Southbank:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/hotel/63881/Bermondsey-Square-Hotel-London-review.html

The hotel is one of twelve that make up the Bespoke Group and wishing to play up that aspect, they have appointed us as their in-house tailor. We will be in residence this coming Friday, May 30th, and subsequently every last Friday of the month to give consultations and take orders (that's the idea!). Having spent time in the United States I became accustomed to seeing flags proudly displayed on just about every front lawn, while in the United Kingdom people had become embarrassed of being mistaken for a football hooligan or rabid racist. So we have made our attempt to reclaim it, firstly with the tweed Union Jack that plays to the muted colours of the restaurant:

Robert Holland, manager of the Bermondsey Square Hotel with his deputy Chris

And on the flip side is the St George Cross mounted on black to chime with the strong graphic scheme of the reception. Here is the first lady to check in after it was installed:

We have also made waistcoats for the restaurant staff and enjoyed the practicality of the project, choosing a wool /poly mix fabric so that they can be cleaned as per the necessity of workwear. 

Anyway we have now been asked to work on designs for the staff at the Gotham - a new hotel they will be opening in Manchester next year. We look forward to Bez holding an election victory party there!

France, meanwhile, is also having a resurgence of prehistoric tribalism. Back in April, demonstrating pan-European appreciation, we were thrilled to be invited by the glamourous champion of the arts, Canadienne TV music show Genevieve Borne (she is the Jools Holland of Canada) to the opening of the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition at the Barbican. We highly commend it to you, it takes up the baton of exhibiting fashion from the YSL expo of a few years back and runs with it hysterically around the track. JPG was there and extolled the creative inspiration that London has afforded him, a visiting foreigner, throughout his career. He helped us enjoy a proud sense of our nationality by declaring that he can personally dismiss the "No sex please, we're British" myth. "I know eet eez a lie!" 

So we shall end with our gallery of Vive la Euro-Love, and the hope that we can love ourselves and live and let love.

Happily co-existing 

The EoB and JPG

JPG and Lady C

The mannequins winked and spoke and twitched 

It's a Euro love-in man, flower power dressing xxx

Bid for Bedlam Bespoke to Benefit the "I Can" children's communication charity

On Friday the bidding opened for a clutch of cool stuff, the proceeds from which will go to benefit the children's communication charity, "I CAN". You can watch Arsenal play (COYG!); hang out with Sir Paul McCartney and / or Rod Stewart; hang a water colour by HRH Prince Charles on your wall; hang one of our bespoke suits in your closet; there's a plethora of temptation and it's all going to Make A Difference so please do throw yourself into this. We must thank Huddersfield Fine Worsted for donating the fabric for the suit, which can be for a lady or gentleman and in either a country tweed or City cloth. You've got until Sunday March 16th before the auction ends.
Get drunk and put your hand in the air, come on:
http://ican.auction-bid.org/micro2.php

If you want to leap straight to the suit, it's here:
http://ican.auction-bid.org/micro2.php#lightbox-popup107
This organisation has just celebrated, surprisingly - well, I was surprised - its 125th anniversary and as part of that they are running the Million Lost Voices Appeal of which Dame Judi Dench is patron. Her Majesty The Queen is Patron of the charity as a whole. In the last two years they have raised over £2million to support children aged 3-11 years with communication difficulties across the UK. I CAN also runs two Schools for children with severe speech, language and communication needs.

Pupils from one of these, the Meath School, performed with the London Chamber Orchestra last month at St. James' Palace and we were privileged to be there. Trying to convey how moving it was I find myself at a loss to do it justice. The children made the point perfectly, demonstrating as they sang the problems they overcome and the progress they can make with the specialist attention.

I'll stick with my sartorial small talk and tell you that Mr Wesley looked lethally slick in his black tie. We made a skirt from the Ginger Chutney tartan for me and a gold "King and I" top with the Bedlam biker zips in the sleeves (more of that later - it managed to present me in some sort of decorum on this night but led me into shame a few days later).

We brushed ourselves up and dusted ourselves down

Mr Wesley looking deadly next to the calico for one of our new jacket styles

Giving it some Angelina-style leg

At the reception afterwards HRH the Duchess of Cornwall and Ma Butler chatted animatedly. I told her we have a friend in common, Antony Price and she was keen to hear how his chickens are doing http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG3365628/Antony-Price-the-man-who-redesigned-the-Duchess-of-Cornwall.html

There was a nice nod by Jerry Hall to Antony this week actually, and how her daughter Georgia May is now a paying client: http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/columns/ellie-pithers/TMG10650795/Lessons-from-the-Stylish-Jerry-Hall-model.html

HRH The Duchess of Cornwall and Ma Butler with him and me lurking

So we are delighted to be able to help in some way and hope that you may find something in the selection that tickles your fancy and gets your bidding paddle aloft. To register, text "ICAN" to 88850.
When we were making enquiries for help in this area, I CAN was by far the most accessible and helpful resource.

From dignity to debauchery is only a few days slide, and sure enough I wore the same outfit for the Chinese Burns party held on Burns Night at our friend James' club, a tea-house opium den jazz club in London Bridge http://www.cecilslondon.com/

The ebullient band leader asked who was wearing tartan and I made the mistake of showing off (don't do it kids) and stood up. Having drawn attention to myself, he then came to lead me on to the dance floor, something that brings on in your correspondent a rigor mortis of terror. He proceeded to twirl me about, raising my arms aloft. You may remember I described the gold top as Siamese in style, cut under the bust. The action of twirling about like Lorna bleedin' Doone caused it to rise up thus exposing my embonpoint to the amusement of whoever copped an eyeful. Our friend Bill, it behoves me to mention, had arrived in mufti (it is a dressy affair) so we leant him the red velvet smoking jacket and fez that we just happened to have in the trunk of the car. He only won "Best Dressed Gentleman". Honest to Goodness, you make an effort and humiliation is the reward; rock up n'importe quoi and waltz off with glory. To celebrate this accolade, we took a little turn on the floor once more, but with my arms firmly by my side that time. Some grainy footage of this exists, which I share with you below. Oddly, this had disappeared from the computer when uploading and then, equally mysteriously, has now reappeared, but such are the potent powers at Bill's disposal.

Our Gang - The Young Wizard of Warp & Weft and the Grand Viziers of the Grammys

So January slunk across the sky disguised as a rain cloud. I didn't post one blog. Let's resolve to not let that happen again for a while.

Our two days at Barclays Bank in Hanover Square to cover London Collections: Men was extended  to the whole week. Mark and his dad (both our dads are Arthurs) covered the mannequins in strips of pasted Financial Times and then we chose the clothes we would display before reporting to clock in at 9am on Jan 6th.

It was funny watching people walk by, double take, then come in to talk to us, not only to pay a bill. It was a thoroughly worthwhile exercise and we are really grateful to Osman and the team there who made us feel welcome and interesting, indeed we were quite disappointed not to be asked to tag along to their Austin Powers themed Christmas party on the Friday night. Glad to see Barclays being careful with the pennies and celebrating Christmas in January when you get better rates for party bookings.

On the Wednesday we had a host of visitors including Chris & Ed from Jocks & Nerds magazine http://www.jocksandnerds.com/, as well as their roving news hound Mark Webster, and Bill & Marcela Curbishley. They gamely posed outside - indeed Marcela was our demonstration fitting, trying her two jackets in the foyer while the business of life went on around her.

The banner on the magazine is "Style. History. Culture" and we make the case that Bill is a Titan of all three, having produced Quadrophenia, Tommy, McVicar and, in cinemas now, The Railway Man. Lucky he has Marcela to represent Beauty for him ; )
If you've seen the big sexy films of January, American Hustle and Wolf of Wall Street, go see The Railway Man next. It tells the true story of Eric Lomax, a trainspotter nerd in the British Army. He gets closer than anyone would want to the business of railways when he and his division are set to build the Thai-Burma line in the Japanese prisoner of war camp. This history was memorably portrayed in "Bridge over the River Kwai" but is one theatre of war that has often been overlooked. When I was a little girl we lived next door to a gentleman veteran who was in one of those camps and would hear him awake screaming in the night. So it's not a rom com or in any way light entertainment but if your soul needs some fibre, we recommend it most highly. Wouldn't that be something, if the conclusion caught on - that forgiveness is more powerful than revenge. All the cast do marvellous work, the older leads played by Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, but Jeremy Irving carries the honours as young Lomax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Railway_Man_(film)

The Jay B overcoat in Harris tweed with red piping, in our window on Hanover Square

On Friday lunchtime, I put in a call to GQ magazine, some twenty odd yards away in Vogue House. Jonathan Heaf, Features Director of British GQ, assured me he'd be over to see us. By 4.45pm he had yet to appear. I felt that queasiness as I redialled that comes from the uncomfortable suspicion that you might be a pest. "Argh! I forgot! I'm coming right now!" he proclaimed and seconds later there he was. Life Lesson # 6152 - always make the call. Feel the fear and do it anyway. That meet and greet was a splendid closing quarter of an hour to our week of showcasing in the West End.

And on Monday we were back at 9am because we just couldn't stay away. But mostly to clear away:

One of the things we were excited to tell Jonathan about was our jeans. A few weeks ago a gentleman called up to ask our advice on manufacturing in the UK (we are on an online register for making in the UK www.letsmakeithere.org ). I helped where I could and then he mentioned that they sourced their fabric from London and its environs. "London?!"
Yes, he assured me. The London Cloth Company.

I was on the phone in two seconds flat and spoke for almost an hour to Daniel as I looked through his website. My heart quivered as I scrolled - he makes denim. No one has woven cloth in London for a century. No one has made denim in the UK, anywhere, for Lord knows how long. HE GETS WOOL FROM THE CITY FARM SHEEP for one of his cloths!! Excuse me shouting, it is just so exciting. The whole "de Nimes" thing is an urban myth put about by the dastardly French he maintains. The soldiers of the South in the Civil War couldn't wear wool as it was too darn hot, and anyway, think about what fills their fields down there - not sheep, COTTON. We made an appointment to visit a few days later. Meeting Daniel was a revelation. He is only thirty-two but it is like being in the presence of a master, the Dalai Lama of the loom, the Young Wizard of Warp & Weft. I made a little film of him talking. We are still walking ten feet off the ground. I would have hesitated to reveal this so soon, but Ralph Lauren has already found him and The Times and the Evening Standard both ran pieces last week on the marvel that is Daniel.
Here's my entry for Best Documentary Short then:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aIxIVkSfGA&feature=youtu.be

In a nutshell, Daniel used to make clothes for film and TV, then he found a loom in a barn in Wales and thought that would be a fun project, tinkering with that. And that's what you get from a spot of tinkering. It inevitably leads to all consuming passion:

It's so bloody cold up there in North London that the cat has to sleep under a hypothermia blanket. And Mr Wesley picked up some cloth from the floor, an experiment of Daniel's, and wrapped it about himself. And lo, the "Hobo" coat was born. "Hobo", by the way, is one of my favourite words, a concertina of HOmeward BOund.

I do not lie, the cat under a hyperthermia blanket

Mr Wesley was taken with a piece he picked off the floor

And lo, the Hobo coat!

So, here's the rub - the denim is being washed for us, then we will make our jeans, take them down to the Thames at low tide, take off our shoes and socks, go for a paddle and beat them there on the rocks. A more authentic pair of London Strides you will not find. It's not in the same league as my celluloid above, needless to say, but this parody of a scene in "American Psycho" is a rare treat for those who like the best but don't need to be a d*ck about it:
http://elitedaily.com/humor/hipsters-ruin-everything-this-denim-ad-parodies-the-best-scene-from-american-psycho-video/

Bedlam, where jeans come true!

To conclude this evening, we were proud fit to pop-by-proxy when our pals Nile and Scott scooped the lot at the Grammys this time last week. Song, record, video, sound, they won it all. Bedlam dresses the best! When in doubt, accessorise with awards -

Well done gentlemen, the sixty gun salute has sounded from the ramparts of Bedlam!

London Collections: Men 1014 - It'll be Bedlam in Hanover Square

Well you didn't expect that did you, another posting before you'd even digested the last! ("More bubble & squeak with your brandy butter?"). But the flag must be raised to alert you that Le Cirque de la Mode is rolling into town once more, to inspect the London Collections: Men http://www.londoncollections.co.uk/

Not sure we have ever used the blog to thank our bank before. There have been times I wanted to berate Barclays but, you know how it goes, if you've nothing good to say about someone, come sit down here next to me. No, no. Keep your mean mouth shut. Anyway, when we incorporated and had to open a new bank account for "Earl of Bedlam Ltd.", I requested we be moved to the Hanover Square branch. It sits plum in the middle of the action, across from Vogue House, just behind the Apple Store at Oxford Circus. Inch for inch, we're closer to that than we were to our previous branch down at Clapham Common. Now as part of an initiative to help small business account holders, we have been offered an installation in the foyer there, with its plate glass windows that gaze upon Mayfair and that will allow the denizens Mayfair, we hope, to reciprogaze.

We shall be there from 9.30am until 5pm on Monday and Tuesday next week, the 6th and 7th of January. It is my wont to write about things after the event but it occurred to me that it might be sensible to give advance notification for once! If you are passing please do come cheque us out.

Our lovely Marcela will come by for a fitting on Monday afternoon, fingers crossed, so you can see the tape measure in action. For now we must get back to decoupaging the mannequins, pasting them in the Financial Times, and readying our look:

We hope to see you!