Hand and Lock Embroidery

Into the wild

A big ‘Congratulations’ is in order to Natalie Richardson, who has just completed BA Fashion design Technology at LCF and selected for the highly acclaimed LCF PR show which was held on June 3rd 2010.

Hand & Lock collaborated with Natalie for her final collection as she wanted all her garments to be professionally hand embroidered in silk shading, which is a beautiful technique but very time consuming!

Natalie chose to combine oversized and softly shaped jackets, coats and shirt dresses, using ethically sourced cottons in cool colours, with fur inspired hand embroidery. Animals such as a gazelle, anteater, hyena and fox, were the source of her designs, as their fur varied in boldness, colour, pattern and shape.

Before starting the embroidery onto Natalie’s actual fabric, Hand & Lock sampled each ‘fur’ design to ensure they achieved the perfect result. Sana Uddin, Studio Manager and Natalie, sat for hours discussing colours, shading and which the types of silks thread would be the most suitable. Hand & Lock chose to use Anchor embroidery threads for the silks shading, and one small sample used 3 skeins alone. This was due to the density of the embroidery and the effect that Natalie wanted to achieve. After embroidering each sample, Hand & Lock knew that boxes upon boxes of silk threads would be used for each garment!

The design and pattern of the embroidered ‘fur’ had to be very precise as each pattern piece had to match up. The embroiderers used Natalie’s beautiful illustrations as a guide, as she drew each stoke of fur by hand onto each pattern piece. The embroiderers then followed the artwork meticulously, using their experience and expertise to ensure that each pattern piece was exactly as the drawing.

Once the ‘fur’ embroideries were complete, Hand & Lock were also asked to embroider two further designs, yet this time Natalie chose to use feathers for her inspiration. The feather designs were much more delicate and soft, due to the tonal and complimentary colours and the placement of the embroidery. Therefore the density of the embroidery was much less, so Hand & Lock chose to use a fine split stitch for one of the feather designs.

After seeing the whole collection finished and photographed, it was great to see the bold colours of the ‘fur’ embroidery on each garment. The ‘Gazelle Coat’ was a fantastic example of this, as it was densely embroidered using autumnal shades of browns and deep golds, and against the royal blue cotton, it looked striking! The two garments with the feather designs sat well in the collection, as they gave the collection a more feminine touch and helped to create a balance between the bold ‘fur’ designs.