Hand and Lock Embroidery

The Golden kiss

On the 8th June 2009, Lulu Guinness held her 20th Anniversary garden party at the V & A Museum. In celebration of the event, she designed the world’s first fully automated handbag based on the idea of a bird cage. The handbag was part of a collaboration project between the finest of craftspeople, hence why Hand & Lock were involved.

Lulu Guinness approached Sana Uddin, Studio Manager at Hand & Lock to embroider three areas of the birdcage frame in a barley twist design. The hexagonal shaped lid, base and the small centred drawer area were all beautifully and very accurately embroidered using a very fine gold wire. The effect of the wire was to appear as a continuation of the barley twist, so we had to ensure that the ‘twisted look’ of the gold wire was as close as possible to that of the cage.

After sampling many different thicknesses of gold wire and gold work techniques, the technique ‘essing’ and purl sizes 5 and 7 of gold rough wire were chosen. So Megumi Endo, one of our gold work embroidery specialists, got down to work. The three finished gold wire embroideries looked magnificent against the black silk satin and seeing the cage fully completed at the event at the V & A under a spot light, was a fabulous ending to a fabulous project!