getting there!
Published: Sunday, April 20th 2008
Any move is disruptive, but moving home and business at the same time? Boy, is that disruptive!
I am slowly getting back to normal, but I have really been under the cosh with my work as the move of the business was one move I could have done without at the time.
Here a few bits I have been working on over the previous months, some of the garments shown here were finished before my move.
The first picture shows a cloth that a client brought into me for making up. It turns out this length was very old and had come from a Yorkshire Mill that his wife's family was involved in decades back.
The picture below is a true reflection of the colour of the cloth, a beautiful blue, with a really nice small diamond pattern to the cloth. The selvedge of the cloth was not woven so I have no idea where it was from, the weight was around 14oz all wool. The picture shows the back corner of the out breast welt pocket.
The next picture shows the trousers to the above coat, they are fully assembled and waiting for the hand finishing to be done. The colour difference between the two pictures is clear to see and is my fault!
The next picture shows a portion of the collar and lapel on an odd sports coat I finished recently. The cloth was from Porter and Hardings glorious 12th bunch and I had a coat on the go in this very same fabric not too long back.
The lapel is a peaked type, single breasted front to the jacket. You can see the hand stitching on the very edge of the lapel and collar and the hand sewing of the lapel to facing seam.
The first picture below shows me doing the hand finishing on a pair of trousers. And the picture after is me hand sewing the collar on a coat, it is the coat from the very first picture at the top.
The next picture shows a section of the collar and lapel on a suit I finished last week. The cloth is a 12/13oz all wool in a lovely mid grey colour.
You can see the hand made/worked lapel hole I have done, and the delicate hand stitched edges to the collar and lapel. Stitches placed as delicately as these take a lot of time to do.
The next picture shows the pocket flap matching on a coat of my own. The cloth is the London Lounge one I made the trousers to some time back, I have just got around to putting the pocket flaps in, the coat is now back under my bench!!
Because of the large distinct check/plaid pattern to the cloth I cut a one piece jacket front. You can see the result as the pocket flap matches both ways on the cloth, vertically and horizontally.
The next picture shows a pattern I recently drafted ( just before my move ) for a new client who is CEO of a major Australian Airline.
These patterns I make for you are unique to you and you only. The pattern evolves through the fitting process's as alterations are made to it. The pattern is made from the measures I take from you.
The first picture below shows the view from the front window of our new house that greeted us the other day, 4" of snow, it was fantastic!
The second picture shows my daughter Louisa playing in the snow, we all had a massive snowball fight!
The last picture shows another cloth that was brought to me by a client to be made up, a J+J Minnis flannel, a really nice cloth with a beautiful sheen that does not come through the screen well.
This will be an odd jacket and was to originally have 2 patch pockets with a one piece yoke back with small pleats gathered at the yoke and waist section, finished by a loose half belt.
After the fitting I received a call from my client asking to put flapped pockets on, which I have done, the back will remain the same.
To make sure my client liked the back arrangement, I cut it out in a bit of old spare cloth I had, this way he was able to see the back in the flesh to make a final decision without potentially ruining an expensive cloth.
I shall post more pictures of this coat through the various making stages as I get them, as this will be a beauty when finished.
There it is then, some more bits!
(Comments: 2 | Permalink)
try again with my new website!
Published: Sunday, April 13th 2008
Try again!
Here is a link.... http://desmerrion.com
(Comments: 0 | Permalink)
sewing machine and other bits for sale
Published: Sunday, April 13th 2008
I have a few bits of spare sewing equipment I am wanting to get rid of.
I have a rake of stuff in storage at my fathers, and some bits at my home that I have no longer any real need for.
I have a Pfaff industrial sewing machine, a spare vaccum pressing table ( iron not included ) a Union Special belt loop machine and a buttoning on machine ( not a button HOLE machine ) The buttoning on machine has 2 machine heads mounted on the table, both work fine, so you get 2 for the price of 1!
All the machines are single phase motors which means they can be used with normal electric supply at home. All the machines are in perfect working order and very good condition.
Remember these machines are all heavy duty industrial machines made for factory production, they will run and run forever trouble free.
If anyone is interested in buying any of these spare machines, drop me a line with a sensible offer, you will have to collect them though or have them collected.
Here are some pictures.
(Comments: 0 | Permalink)
my new website
Published: Thursday, April 3rd 2008
I have a new website coming that should be on line soon, there is a problem with the server at the moment, so we are swapping it to a new server.
The website/weblog here will still be running, I am not closing it down, but it will not be my main website anymore and there will be a link to this weblog through the new website.
I need a new website ( and not just a weblog ) as I also require a more professional web presence for my business.
The new web address will be here...... http://desmerrion.com/
(Comments: 2 | Permalink)
god speed your safe return
Published: Friday, March 14th 2008
At certain times the rest of life pails into insignificance.
I would like to wish my eldest son, Sean, his serving friends, fellow comrades in arms, and the whole of the 3rd Para Reg Battalion a safe and speedy return from Afghanistan.
Our thoughts are with you Sean. X
(Comments: 7 | Permalink)
lapel rolls
Published: Thursday, March 6th 2008
Bespoke garments are about different things for different customers, and the roll of a jacket lapel is just one of these examples.
Some clients like a very relaxed look to the jacket combined with soft lazy full lapels, ( the lapels with all the fullness showing down the lapel edge ) personally, they are not my cup of tea, but if requested the client is king.
Other clients of mine like a lapel to be sharp and very clean with a good strong roll, I must admit this is my preference, even though it is much harder to achieve and get good results.
The picture below shows the starting of one of these jackets with a good strong roll, and when fully finished the jacket will have a lovely, classy lapel roll.
I have hand padded ( hand stitched ) the lapel portion of the jacket, at the same time as placing the stitches I have created the roll you can see here. The lapel is automatically sitting up off the table and wanting to turn over to its correct finished position without me having to manually hold it in position.
The next picture shows another angle of the above lapel, there are no basting cottons holding this lapel in place, just the hand padding stitches.
The chalk line you can see going up to the shoulder area of the jacket is the line the turn of the finished lapel will take, the crease edge of the lapel in other words.
The next picture shows a section of the right lapel which I have hand stitched to create the shape to the lapel pictured above.
Because this is a 'fresco' cloth I have used a slightly heavier canvas for the jacket. The differences between this particular canvas and my best quality soft canvas is virtually indistinguishable to the touch or the wearer.
The next picture shows the lapel roll of a jacket I was in the process of finishing. The jacket lapel pictured here is the Porter and Harding jacket fitting pictured on my client in the weblog entry below this one under the title " who says shorter people should not wear large checked patterns"
You can see on this picture the lovely strong clean roll to the lapel, this picture was taken with the camera placed on the cloth flat, so this an eye level shot.
This cloth is 16-18oz, I cant remember the actual weight, so it does lend itself well to a great roll anyway.
The next picture shows where I started from with the lapel pictured above.
The picture below shows the right front side of the jacket BEFORE I have started to pad the lapel ( hand stitch ) the lapel is just flat and lifeless.
(Comments: 3 | Permalink)
who says shorter people should not wear large checked patterns?
Published: Saturday, February 16th 2008
I AM RETURNING TO AMERICA EARLY MARCH, PLEASE CLICK THIS LINK:- AMERICA FOR MY DATES.
I saw a client friend of mine last week to conduct two jacket fittings with him.
One cloth was a Porter and Harding fabric, the other was a London Lounge exclusive fabric, the Best of Both lambswool.
The next two pictures show a front shot and a back shot of the London Lounge 'Best of Both' jacket on my client.
The cloth is a lovely weight, and very soft. But the main thing is the balance of the check pattern on the cloth, it is perfect to my eye.
My client is around 5' 6"- 5' 7" tall yet the cloth suits his figure perfectly, who says large check patterned cloths should not be used for short clients?
On a different note, my thoughts on some of the comments that have been lingering round on various open forums.
Do not fall into the trap of believing all the bumph that is going around at the moment on these various 'forums' given out by the armchair experts and self proclaimed Gods of the tailoring world.
Let me tell you I will work with anyone and pull out all the stops to deliver the best I can, I welcome and encourage dialogue between tailor and client.
The forum I do recommend if you want to learn more is www.thelondonlounge.net/ Most of the stuff posted is from people that really care about Bespoke.
Trust your tailor, if he is good he will look after you and always make you look a million dollars.
Any way back to the issue at hand, cutting and good tailoring are the key in this department big time to balance a checked cloth with the shorter figure, it is why the sensible people go to tailors!
I have cut these jackets slightly different from how I normally cut jackets for this client. I have cut the chest cleaner, but with a slight amount of drape, opened the front quarters of the jacket up and placed a slight amount of wadding in the shoulders. We normally have nothing in his shoulders at all.
We both agreed, and more importantly my clients wife did! that we all liked the look of the jackets and have nothing to alter.
You can see on the back picture that I do not cut a back with lots of drape, I cut a small armhole so the jacket does not need excessive drape to allow free forward motion of the arms.
Both the jackets below went from cutting straight to the stage you see here, the London Lounge cloth just needs all the hand finishing doing now, the collars, linings, jacket edges etc all hand sewn.
The next pictures show a Porter and Harding cloth on my client. I ran out of time to get this coat to the same stage as the London Lounge one, so it is really at a pocket fitting stage.
The lapels have not been padded, all the seams are basted together, and there is no lining near this jacket, just the breast welt pocket and jeted flap pockets inserted.
The canvas I used for both these jackets is slightly heavier than my normal canvas to give a nice clean fitted chest with some form to the chest area.
This coat is one step behind the other in stage of make but it is cut exactly the same as the one pictured above.
The Porter and Harding cloth is a lovely colour, it is a shame the blue overcheck does not come through as it is lovely.
The picture below shows one of the hand padded canvas's I made for these jackets.
You can see the shape for the chest I have created when making the canvas, the form for the chest is round and makes the canvas 'sit up' on the table the way it is worn on my client in the jacket pictures here.
If you look at the above canvas and the jacket worn by my client ( the above picture ) you can see the shape to the chest from the hand made canvas, it has quite a lot of shape.
The ruler gives an idea of the amount of form, or shape I have made for these canvas's.
(Comments: 0 | Permalink)
altering overcoat and my america dates
Published: Saturday, February 9th 2008
I AM BACK IN THE USA EARLY MARCH, VISITING NEW YORK AND ATLANTA, PLEASE SEE THIS LINK:- AMERICA FOR MY SCHEDULE.
PLEASE EMAIL ME IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MEET ME WHILST I AM IN AMERICA. des@desmerrionbespoketailor.com
Here are a few tailoring bits I have been doing lately. I am lucky to be very busy at the moment.
I think this year will be up and down for all tailors, regardless of what any others within the trade may say.
I had to do some alterations to an overcoat I recently made for a client. I met him on my last trip down into London to assess the overcoat.
The fist picture shows the overcoat, a cloth woven and finished in Yorkshire and around 18oz in weight, so not the real heavy overcoat stuff but a lovely cloth and fit for the job.
The next picture shows a close shot of the velvet collar step, and lapel. This seam with the cloth and velvet has been hand sewn together.
The next picture shows the gauntlet cuff of one of the sleeves. The gauntlet has been stitched a little more than 1/4" from the edge by hand to match the stitching on the front of the coat also.
The buttons are real horn and are a matte finish as opposed to polished. My own preference is matte horn buttons over polished as they are easier to tell apart from plastic imitation ones.
The vertical yellow stripe and blue horizontal one, did both match the sleeve when I first made the overcoat.
Because one of the alterations was to shorten the sleeves, when I replaced the gauntlet cuff I could not replace it in its original position. If I had more cloth I would have re-made the gauntlet to match.
The next picture is a close up of one of the front real horn buttons on the overcoat.
The beauty of real horn is because it is a 100% natural product, the colours and marbling effect varies from one button to the next, making them unique.
The next picture shows a little bit of the lapel and the hand stitching on it I mentioned earlier.
The above picture is a true reflection of the cloth colour, the one below makes the colour appear too blueish.
The last picture shows the lining inside the overcoat, and as this client had already ordered from me previously he wanted to keep the same lining as his suit I had made him.
Lots of my clients once they find a lining they like, normally stick to the same colour with many subsequent garments they may have made.
Well spotted GBR! ( see comments, the above picture was missing )
As with all bespoke garments when you have anything made the pocket decision is down to the client. This overcoat just has the 2 inbreast pockets.
(Comments: 7 | Permalink)
super twist fabric and clay shooting
Published: Saturday, February 2nd 2008
I HAVE PUBLISHED MY AMERICA DATES, PLEASE CLICK THIS LINK AMERICA OR SEE THE FULL BLOG ENTRY BELOW.
I took an order for a bespoke three piece suit from a new client last year, and after discussing his requirements with him, we decided to go for a super twist cloth from a local cloth merchant.
I do not claim to be a knowledge on fabric construction or weaving, so I am not going to pretend I am here.
To my knowledge a twist cloth is made in the mill by using several fibres of wool spun around one another to make the cloth.
The cloth that was chosen to make this bespoke suit has so many underlying colours it is impossible to describe!
The first picture below shows a close up of the peaked lapel, the complex colours are easy to see, grey, blue,brown, yellow, gold etc etc!!
Some readers may think this fabric could be a little 'busy' for a bespoke tailored suit, but this is not the case.
This is a perfect cloth for a bespoke suit, as it is one of those fabrics you will never see on the ready to wear garment shelf.
It is also one of those cloths that until you can examine it fairly close, most of the details stay hidden from the eye, and they vary in different light! It really is quite beautiful, I have several suits from this bunch personally.
It's a shame that many bespoke tailors will not have this cloth bunch, but I must keep somethings exclusive for my own customers, as other tailors also do.
The next picture shows a shot of the collar taken from the shoulder.
I had enough cloth when cutting this suit out, to cut this top collar so it would also match the check fabric going around the neck.
You can see the check pattern runs into the check one going across the back, the collar also matches vertically at the back neck.
The cloth is also clear to see in this picture.
I am very lucky with my job as the nature of the trade is you are always meeting people, and I have been very fortunate as ALL the clients I have gained from my website are really nice people.
Anyone that has actually met will tell you, being a Yorkshire man I do not mince my words, so what I have put above is genuine.
I have only met a couple of people I did not like or thought I could not work with, and as such I refused to take them on as clients.
The pictures below are a great example of what I mean, clay pigeon shooting with a client who has also become a mate.
I call over to Bolton in Lancashire to see this client now and again, which is a pleasure, but to then find you also have something in common is brilliant, a love of shooting.
The shooting ground is just around the corner from his house, so when we have dealt with business we go and try to smoke a few clays.
It really is years since I did any clay pigeon shooting, but I absolutely love it, I could do it all day, I could do with doing it all day any way as my shooting was terrible!
The picture below shows my client on the way to busting another flying bird.
And the picture below is me on my way to missing yet another clay!
(Comments: 2 | Permalink)
nice smiths woolens cloth
Published: Friday, February 1st 2008
I HAVE PUBLISHED MY DATES FOR MY NEXT US VISIT, PLEASE SEE THE ENTRY BELOW THIS ONE, OR LOOK IN 'AMERICA' FOLDER ON THE RIGHT TOOL BAR.
I have recently finished a jacket for a client which was made for him in the exclusive London Lounge Gun Club check fabric.
When he called to collect the above jacket, I conducted the fitting on a further suit we also have in the pipeline for him, a Smiths Woolens cloth.
I haven't got the cloth number to hand at the moment, but the cloth bunch is really worth a look when you next visit your tailor I shall post the bunch number when I get it.
The picture below shows the cloth which is a lovely traditional style fabric. A base grey colour with a blue/white stripe combined with a nice herringbone pattern to the weave of the cloth.
The colours of the fabric are really beautiful when seen in natural light, these pictures do not do the cloth justice!!
The jacket is getting prepared for a forward fitting, the chalk marks on the jacket are the various inlays which are left inside the jacket for later possible use.
The next picture shows a shot taken up from the bottom of the left forepart/jacket front. You can see the herringbone pattern ( the dark and light shade difference ) of the weave clearer in this picture.
The jacket will be a button three front when finished.
(Comments: 3 | Permalink)