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!

Best of British

Greetings to our world wide multi denominational readership! Wherever you may be and in whomsoever your faith is placed, we hope this finds you as bright and crisp as the blue skies over London today. These few days are the waiting room between seasonal festivities where we flick through the magazine of the past year before being called into the next with some nervous anticipation.

Some people are wading through the next few days, awaiting with nervous anticipation the next wave of weather. Months ago, the hot summer delivered unto us quite respectably sized olives on the little trees of Bedlam and they have clung on in defiance of this week's storms that shook them roughly. We hope the year was kind to you and yours, that you weathered all inc. inclement squalls, and that this finds you replete from the fruits (and nuts) of your table.

We chose the rejected runt Christmas tree at the back of the yard that nobody else wanted, with a bent top that gave it a questioning air and allowed our fairy to list drunkenly:

One of the best gifts we could have wished for came wrapped in newspaper on December 9th, when the righteous Daily Mail chose six companies to represent the "Best of British" - the criteria being that you have to be making in Britain using British suppliers. We found ourselves proudly filling a sandwich between John Smedley
http://www.johnsmedley.com/
and John Lobb
http://www.johnlobbltd.co.uk/main/main.htm
two long revered institutions of distinguished dressing.

Makers of fine, in all senses, knitwear, John Smedley was established in 1784 in Derbyshire where they still produce today. They are a Royal Warrant holder, as is John Lobb, the company that bears the name of the lame Cornish farm boy who walked to London to learn the trade of bootmaking. He cashed in during the Australian gold rush by making boots with hollow heels for stashing nuggets and returned to London to open his shop in 1866 from whence the company has shod assorted Kings and maestros ever since.

The Daily Mail, meanwhile, has the second highest readership in the UK and the most online IN THE WORLD, thanks to the siren lure of the "sidebar of shame" - made up disgustingly largely, or shockingly skinnily, of celebs in bikinis - that scrolls down and yet downer to Hell. Here's the link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2520444/LIZ-JONES-FASHION-THERAPY-Had-cheap-foreign-fashion-Try-best-British.html

And for those who still prefer inky fingers, here's the paper:

So what company to keep, and we are most grateful to Liz Jones and her researcher Dawn. The article was intended as a riposte to Jeremy Hackett's comments in The Times that his company can't get their clothes made in Britain due to the textile industry being "decimated". http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/consumer/article3937680.ece

The first point to make would be that it isn't Jeremy's company any more, he is but an amiable figurehead. We have enjoyed his personal company on many occasions, he is a style standard bearer for South London, and we hope we betray no confidence when we say his eye glistened - or was it the candlelight? - when we told him we do indeed make everything here. He professed the wish that he still had the authority in the company that bears his name to buy a factory here. Well, we are but microscopic and not so flush, but had we the resources available to Hackett the corporation, and a mere six week lead time, we could ask Huddersfield Fine Worsted to weave anything we liked that was not in their available stock; we could commandeer the Cooper Stollbrand factory in Manchester to roll out ready-to-wear for us; and we would have busted a gut to stop James Grove buttons going bust and be helping the saint who is trying to re-establish them:

http://makeitbritish.co.uk/uk-manufacturing-2/save-a-british-button-manufacturer/

Many thanks also to Madame Sasha Slater, doyenne of class, who had our scarves elevated to Harper's Bazaar's Christmas gift guide, in the luxury section in between the Aston Martin hamper and a Mulberry dress:

http://www.harpersbazaar.co.uk/christmas-gift-guides/christmas-gift-guide-luxury-chanel-valentino#slide-22

A cause of much shrieking celebration was the milestone of the Millennial Bedlamite - Nick Johannessen was the 1000th person to "like" our page on Facebook! We know he is a man of taste from his blog www.welldresseddad.com and to his credit he can now add the Duffle Bag we are sending to Norway as a prize http://earlofbedlam.bigcartel.com/product/bedlam-duffle-bags :

If you haven't yet made your own mark of approval, then help roll us on and upwards here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Earl-of-Bedlam/157642327606726

Remember, that's the place to catch up with creations and commissions on a daily basis while postings here have slipped to monthly editions. Below is a gallery of the winter season's clients - a better bunch we could not wish for, and many, many thanks to all who climbed the stairs to Bedlam this year.

My brain is getting fatigued, the body having to work so hard to get through surfeit calories that the mind is sluggish. I had wanted to write a well considered round up of the year as digestif but perhaps these recent pictures will do it better. While we still hope in time to make a widely accessible branch of Bedlam, the joy of creating clothes for wildly diverse, fabulously interesting, individual characters that we have the privilege of getting to know, is so hugely rewarding that we only hope some of the satisfaction transmits.

Simon's purple velvet party jacket with silk lining custom printed by Dan & Louise Hatley with Bedlam's signature handcuffs

A cape for the castle ramparts in John G. Hardy "Alsport" tweed with scarlet silk crepe lining and secret zippy pocket just visible

Jamie Poulton in the "Dolf" jacket from the Hell for Leather Autumn / Winter 2013 collection

Moritz at the first fitting for his wool / mohair suit

We really do love our clients

Cool Cat Jake in his "Joat", made from John G. Hardy "Alsport" tweed

Steve's three-piece suit in Holland & Sherry "Peacock" tweed with mussel shell buttons 

Steve, monumentally magnificent in his suit.

We were proud to make Robert Peel's winter wedding suit (below). He has become a dear friend, a client who came with us from the old shop. No greater compliment can a man pay his tailor. His great great (great?) grandpappy, whose name he bears, introduced, amongst other things while holding office as one of our better Home Secretaries and Prime Ministers, the modern police force - put the raggle taggle key stone vigilantes in a smart uniform and gave them an identity: "The Peelers" or "Bobbies"!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Peel

Robert was an early adopter of Bedlam, from the old shop. He paid us the highest compliment by asking us to make his winter wedding suit. CONGRATULATIONS!!

Robert chose a 100% wool John G. Hardy Worsted Alsport in a charcoal grey with joyful flecks of colour and a silver lining. We went for mussel shell buttons - one set of cuff buttons will have the rough side out, the other arm will present the smooth. For such is married life!

On one cuff the mussel shell buttons are rough side out, the other smooth, for such is married life!

And the last bit of sewing we shall share for now, the party hats we made for our Shareholders' Agreements, a document prepared for our Founding Fathers and Mothers. As the year closed we added one more to their number, my friend the legend, Nile Rodgers, and we are honoured by his faith, as we are by the continuing support of our other scaffolders, and everyone that entrusts us with getting them best dressed and, not least, anyone who gives this chattering blog their attention in times of myriad options and calls on such.
Thank you all.
Our very best wishes for a happy and healthy 2014,
Caroline & Mark

Wishing you health & happiness - waheyyy!!!