Hand and Lock Embroidery

Take me to the hospital…

Hand & Lock were approached by Sir Tom Baker and Keith Flint from the Prodigy to design embroidery for a tweed jacket and championship style boxing belt for the Prodigy’s upcoming 2009 tour.  Carne Griffiths, creative director for Hand & lock met with Keith to discuss elements that would be used in both designs. “Keith came to us with so much energy and so many ideas for the project at the start – taking influence from the designs of his own tattoos and imagery from his background we developed two distinct themes for this project. A Hunting club style emblem for the jacket base upon traditional british hunt badges and paraphernalia, and a larger than life concoction of fairground imagery and amateur boxing emblems from Keith’s home county Essex.”

From this point Carne made drawings and the designs evolved under Keith’s guidance . . . . it was then all hands to the pump as we worked on the embroidery to meet the deadline of the opening night of the tour. The finished jacket produced by Tom Baker with Hand & Lock’s embroidery adorning the back and left breast pocket was heavily photographed at the opening of the 2009 tour.. Since then we have produced 2 more belts for the Prodigy’s return to the UK gigs, which we were lucky enough to go and see.

“We arrived at the sold out Wembley gig with minutes to spare. The Prodigy, still full of the same energy after 18 years in the public eye, played back to back hits.   It is not surprising that they sold 200,000 copies of their new album within two weeks of its release, for some one who has been a fan since childhood the gig was not a disappointment.  Concentrating on their old hit singles and all of the new album they played an hours set without pausing for breath.

After the gig we were treated to the VIP bar and got to spend some time talking to Keith and his wife about the embroidery he had been wearing for the gig and his plans for the rest of the tour.  It was very satisfying seeing our ancient embroidery techniques in such a contemporary setting and one that was so exciting for us as prodigy fans”

Claire Barrett
Design Assistant

On Sunday 10th May the Prodigy performed on the main stage of BBC Radio1′s Big Weekend. This year the big week end was taking place at Lydiard Park in Swindon. Watch the Prodigy’s performance with BBC iPlayer: video.