Upon reading the last posting here, Mr. Wesley's old friend and lunatic about town, Horatio Barnzley Nelson Armitage - http://check-me-out-now.blogspot.com/2009/06/there-is-only-one.html - immediately and generously offered to lead us blindfolded through cobbled backstreets to a secret location - his own nomination for top quality / top value fabric supplier. We picked him up at A Child of the Jago, the store of his eponymous fashion house on Great Eastern Street - http://www.achildofthejago.com/ This is just about the only line of current days to which Mr Wesley will doff his cap and indeed he modelled for them in the Spring / Summer 2010 show:
The price of a regular display mannequin is around £500 - if you're passing a shop window see how many there are in it and do the maths. I even rang up the daddy of all dummies, Stockman in New York - http://www.siegel-stockman.com/men.html - and had a lovely chat with Lucia there who had one for a Canadian client uncollected I could take but it was $585 and duh, in New York (they have a place in France but no outlet in the UK). So we walked into Spitalfields market and the first thing we saw was a bashed up lady torso for which the seller wanted daft money. We made our excuses and wandered on across the covered square. On the far side was another lady of Whitechapel waiting for us in a state of louche undress, but in perfect nick and the English "Stockman" no less - http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/kennett.lindsell/
Although we want to do ladies wear in a few seasons we are focussing on the boys while we get rolling. We resisted her solicitations and mooched on to find John of Portobello on Parade doing his East End stint. Mark got an outrider's cape from him that he's worn every day since and as attracted not just admiring glances but enquires from the yout' of Stockwell. Then we succumbed, returned to Patrick's stall and paid a mutually agreed amount of folding money for Lillie (as she will henceforth be known).
Mr Wesley carried her over his shoulder, much the way he does me on occasion, and made it all work by figuring that although she is a size 16, there are a lot of man boobs around these days and so Lillie will be our cross-dressing dummy.
Tired as we were, we thought we'd pop in to visit Josephine, our friend with a stall at the Battersea Antiques Fair - http://www.josephineryanantiques.co.uk/ - and rang to say we were on our way. We mentioned our find and she exclaimed that someone had ten tailors' dummies no less on a stall in the marquee. We tore across the city, flinging Lillie about in the back as she wouldn't wear a belt, and screeched to a halt in the park. We pelted up to Jo's stall, and she lead us round an aisle where we saw a whole group indeed, but every last one of them had lady bumps (except for the children's sizes):
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| Mark and a dog called Bastard in the Child of the Jago show S/S2010 |
Barnzley designs the line in partnership with Joe Corré who is the child of Vivienne Westwood and the late Malcolm McLaren. Previously he created the fancy pants peddler Agent Provocateur with his ex-wife Serena Rees, that they subsequently sold for a fine'n'fancy fortune. Already his new Child has won windows at Selfridges as well as club kids' kudos. Oooh, while we are on a Westwood wicket, I should mention that a few weeks ago we met Francis Lowe, menswear designer at VW. He was uncommonly nice to us and told how he had started out in the company as a sales assistant - having been a plumber before going into retail. Andreas Kronthaler (Dame Viv's partner in life and business), undeterred by his lack of fashion school qualifications, asked if he would like to give the designing a shot and mentored him to the top job. That story reflects well on all involved I think.
So we parked up outside an unprepossessing unit on the outskirts of town where children ran wild in the streets and stray dogs scrapped over a box of bones and followed Barnzley into a warehouse. It was hard to walk with bags over our heads and I stumbled as we went through the door. It had been quite hard to drive too, come to that. Now inside we were revealed by the master of Terrorist clothing (Child collections often take inspiration from those hors de la loi) to find ourselves blinkingly swept up in the good humour of the greeting that awaited him. Barnzley is, after all, a man unacquainted with indifferent reaction. Philip and Martin here buy up surplus fabrics from British mills which already tells you that the stock will be of supremely pukkah quality and normally super pricey. When Prada / Gucci / whoever come to collect their order they sometimes shriek "Porco Dio mama mia Bolognese! There is a snag of .0000001mm only visible under a microscope, we cannot possibly take it!" Which is when these gentlemen appear as if by magic in long capes and wide brimmed hats to off to take it off the mill owners' hands. It's all quite Robin Hood really - the mill owners' children get to eat after all while the fashion students of the nation and penny-wise start-ups like ourselves get to work with fabulous fabric. That's the kind of win-win scenario I'm talkin' about.
Then Philip lead us to a bolt of the near-mythical worsted that is Guanaco. I no longer pretend to know anything about anything and readily admit that I had never heard of this yarn. So extraordinarily special is this - it makes cashmere look like acrylic - that it normally retails for £1200 PER METRE!!!!
"Can I have a sample?"
"No."
Fair do's haha.
If you would like to know more about this cloth of gold consult here:
http://www.guanacosales.com/product/guanaco_yarn/
The advice runs "don't wring out or agitate too much" - mmm, same can be applied to me too.
Ya wanna see? Sure you do:
So we parked up outside an unprepossessing unit on the outskirts of town where children ran wild in the streets and stray dogs scrapped over a box of bones and followed Barnzley into a warehouse. It was hard to walk with bags over our heads and I stumbled as we went through the door. It had been quite hard to drive too, come to that. Now inside we were revealed by the master of Terrorist clothing (Child collections often take inspiration from those hors de la loi) to find ourselves blinkingly swept up in the good humour of the greeting that awaited him. Barnzley is, after all, a man unacquainted with indifferent reaction. Philip and Martin here buy up surplus fabrics from British mills which already tells you that the stock will be of supremely pukkah quality and normally super pricey. When Prada / Gucci / whoever come to collect their order they sometimes shriek "Porco Dio mama mia Bolognese! There is a snag of .0000001mm only visible under a microscope, we cannot possibly take it!" Which is when these gentlemen appear as if by magic in long capes and wide brimmed hats to off to take it off the mill owners' hands. It's all quite Robin Hood really - the mill owners' children get to eat after all while the fashion students of the nation and penny-wise start-ups like ourselves get to work with fabulous fabric. That's the kind of win-win scenario I'm talkin' about.
 |
| Flirty Philip the People's Pimpernel, and the double trouble duo Wezley and Barnzley |
 |
| Philip and Martin |
"Can I have a sample?"
"No."
Fair do's haha.
If you would like to know more about this cloth of gold consult here:
http://www.guanacosales.com/product/guanaco_yarn/
The advice runs "don't wring out or agitate too much" - mmm, same can be applied to me too.
Ya wanna see? Sure you do:
 |
| The Queen of Cloth and the thumb of someone who cannot be identified in order to safeguard supplies |
 |
| A still sumptuous silk and cashmere mix |
 |
| One of my favourites that day |
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| The label we want to see |
Presently, Barnzley had business needing his attention but before we parted he gave us ANOTHER top tip - for finding a tailor's dummy, such as we urgently need for our sampling. Spitalfields antiques market was on, it being a Thursday, and he reckoned they surface there most weeks. Someone else had advised checking out Morplan, the shop outfitters just north of Oxford St but we found that to have mostly display mannequins inspired, or so it seemed, by either porn stars or Muppets:
 |
| The more I look at this the more disturbing I find it |
The price of a regular display mannequin is around £500 - if you're passing a shop window see how many there are in it and do the maths. I even rang up the daddy of all dummies, Stockman in New York - http://www.siegel-stockman.com/men.html - and had a lovely chat with Lucia there who had one for a Canadian client uncollected I could take but it was $585 and duh, in New York (they have a place in France but no outlet in the UK). So we walked into Spitalfields market and the first thing we saw was a bashed up lady torso for which the seller wanted daft money. We made our excuses and wandered on across the covered square. On the far side was another lady of Whitechapel waiting for us in a state of louche undress, but in perfect nick and the English "Stockman" no less - http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/kennett.lindsell/
Although we want to do ladies wear in a few seasons we are focussing on the boys while we get rolling. We resisted her solicitations and mooched on to find John of Portobello on Parade doing his East End stint. Mark got an outrider's cape from him that he's worn every day since and as attracted not just admiring glances but enquires from the yout' of Stockwell. Then we succumbed, returned to Patrick's stall and paid a mutually agreed amount of folding money for Lillie (as she will henceforth be known).
Mr Wesley carried her over his shoulder, much the way he does me on occasion, and made it all work by figuring that although she is a size 16, there are a lot of man boobs around these days and so Lillie will be our cross-dressing dummy.
Tired as we were, we thought we'd pop in to visit Josephine, our friend with a stall at the Battersea Antiques Fair - http://www.josephineryanantiques.co.uk/ - and rang to say we were on our way. We mentioned our find and she exclaimed that someone had ten tailors' dummies no less on a stall in the marquee. We tore across the city, flinging Lillie about in the back as she wouldn't wear a belt, and screeched to a halt in the park. We pelted up to Jo's stall, and she lead us round an aisle where we saw a whole group indeed, but every last one of them had lady bumps (except for the children's sizes):
As disappointed as we were, it was non the less a pleasure to meet Lord Robert Brady of Albrighton whose stall it was and who delighted us with the history of his career which included being a tailor. YES IT DID.
If the dummies pictured here are just what you are looking for, do contact DJ Green Antiques -http://www.djgreenantiques.co.uk/
If the dummies pictured here are just what you are looking for, do contact DJ Green Antiques -http://www.djgreenantiques.co.uk/The next day, driving up to the Borough, we spied a whole gang of abseiling dummies who can maybe be press-ganged into our workroom:
For now, however, Lillie remains our trans-gender mascot.
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