For more military embroidery please visit our website: www.handembroidery.com

Contact Sana for more details on our embroidery services.

Hand & Lock will take its School of Embroidery to America in early Summer 2010. Run in conjunction with New York embroiderers Penn & Fletcher, the School will offer 3 courses:
- Goldwork
- Tambour Beading
- Cornely

Starting in June 2010, the School of Embroidery New York will soon be taking bookings: watch this space.

While waiting, why not view the new schedule of courses run in London? Click here.

About Penn & Fletcher:
Penn & Fletcher produces the finest U.S embroidery for Soft Furnishing, Theatres and Interiors. Their designs are an intricate mix of new patterns and centenary techniques that results in wonderful embroidery pieces.
Visit Penn & Fletcher: www.pennandfletcher.com

New this year: the addition of gold & silver wire available for purchase. Contact Sana for more details.

Time: 10.00am to 4.30pm
Where: Hand & Lock Studio, W1W 8TE
When: January 28th & 29th

Since their foundation, both tailors Gieves & Hawkes and embroiderers Hand & Lock have been working very closely. At the time, M.Hand provided both Gieves and Hawkes & Co with all the finest goldwork and military embroidery to complete their uniforms. Today, latest collaborations between the two include:
- The Coronation of the King of Tonga in 2008
- A replica of Michael Jackson’s coat (Hand & Lock also supplied Gieves & Hawkes with the embroidery for the original coat)

For any design enquiries or to receive a quotation for military and bespoke embroidery please contact carne@handembroidery.com

Savile Row’s first wardrobe mistress Kathryn Sargent has the measure of tradition
The bastions of male dominance have nearly all fallen now. There are women judges, women chief constables and women bankers. There has even, if memory serves, been a woman prime minister.

But Savile Row is not the City of London, or the judiciary; they hold on to their traditions with a bit more determination there, and it has taken until the second decade of the 21st century for the heartland of bespoke tailoring to appoint the first woman as a head cutter.

She is Kathryn Sargent, and she has just been promoted to the position at Gieves & Hawkes, the tailors who have been dressing English gentlemen — from the Duke of Wellington to the Prince of Wales, by way of David Niven and Noël Coward — since 1771.

At 35, Ms Sargent may have been born five years after her predecessor, Peter O’Neill, first worked on Savile Row; she may also be the only cutter on the Row to wear a big, heart-shaped ring of Swarovski crystal (“my bling”, she calls it). But to say that she is a woman with a feeling for tradition is an understatement.

She developed her interest in tailoring while studying fashion at Surrey Institute of Art and Design, and started collecting old-fashioned tailors’ instruction manuals. They include such volumes as The Modern Tailor, Outfitter and Clothier from 1928, a compendium of advice on the wearing and making of everything from court dress to military uniforms.

Among its gems is: “Plus fours and gay pullovers are out of place in the shop, office or counting house. In the City the black jacket suit is still considered correct, and in Throgmorton Street is often worn with a silk hat.”

Armed with such inspiration, Ms Sargent knew exactly what she wanted to do. “I have always liked men in suits; my dad used to get suits made in a local tailor. He even did the gardening in a suit.

“I was fortunate enough to get a work experience placement in Savile Row, and realised this was what I wanted to be a master of. It is all the tradition and the fact that we are still making clothes by the methods they were using in the early 1900s.”

Starting at Gieves & Hawkes in 1996 as a trimmer — the dogsbody, sorting out buttons and threads and the like for the tailors — she was not the only woman there. But she was the only one who wanted to be a cutter. “They said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ ” Persistence and enthusiasm paid off, and she rose through the ranks to become first an undercutter to Mr O’Neill — a man who can remember the days when head cutters could expect to be called Sir by their juniors — and then a cutter in her own right.

In 2008 she made the clothes for the coronation of the King of Tonga. “It was a huge order, 25 uniforms,” she said. “He was a real gentleman, as you would expect with a king.”

Sexism among her colleagues may be a thing of the past, but what about customers? Do they not expect a man to be measuring their inside leg? “Sometimes they are a little surprised,” she said. “But hopefully, my professionalism proves I can do the job.”

THE TIMES, January 14th 2010

]]> http://www.handembroidery.com/2010/01/savile-row%e2%80%99s-first-wardrobe-mistress-has-the-measure-of-tradition-and-inside-legs/feed/ 0 http://www.handembroidery.com/2010/01/cupids-collection/ http://www.handembroidery.com/2010/01/cupids-collection/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:03:11 +0000 nathalie http://www.handembroidery.com/?p=2291 Once again, Hand & Lock is featured in Lifestyle Men’s Magazine: GQ. In its latest February issue, GQ presents a large selection of Valentine’s gift ideas for Her.

10. Hand & Lock. Looking for the perfect touch for Valentine’s Day, why not personalise your gift with the finest embroidered monogram? Hand 7 Lock offers a large range of hand embroidery services that will turn your idea into a unique gift, like “GQ” logo pictured here. To book an appointment and discuss your designs call them on 020 7580 7488 or visit their website www.handembroidery.com

For all your Valentine’s enquiry please contact Sana via email sana@handembroidery.com or by phone +44(0)207 580 7488

Set decorators Sophie Tyler and Alison Cardy, both of whom have worked on award winning ‘Atonement’, approached Hand & Lock in September 2008, to embroider some integral props for Sherlock Holmes. These ranging from hand embroidered handkerchiefs, embroidered gold wire symbols onto velvet chair fronts and banners with silk appliqué Hebrew symbols.

Hand & Lock embroidered over 10 handkerchiefs for Holmes and Watson with a beautifully intricate hand embroidered monogram on each, the SH in a burgundy anchor silk for S. Holmes and JW in a navy anchor silk for Dr Watson. To Hand & Lock’s delight, Holmes’ monogrammed handkerchief features as an important prop in one of the opening scenes and also appears later on in the film.

The appliqué banners and chair embroideries are featured in the same room, within a scene with Lord Blackwood and his cohorts. The embroidery cannot be missed, as it is everywhere in the room and really helps to set the scene of the ‘Dark Arts’! The appliqué banners are hung on the walls in each corner of the room. The champagne coloured base silk combined with two shades of appliquéd gold silks, along with a satin stitch and gold fringing make the banners look very dramatic and dark! The chair embroideries similarly add to this effect with embroidery created in gold wire and silks using many textures of purl and raisings to create a three dimensional effect onto a dark blue velvet ground.

Hand & Lock would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The biographical film stars an amazing Brendan Gleeson as British Prime Minister during WW II. Gleeson won an Emmy Award for his role at this year’s awards ceremony. The movie featured a pair of slippers hand embroidered by Hand & Lock. This was a copy of the slipper monogram we embroidered for Sir Winston before the Second World War.

Monogrammed slippers have always been part of a more traditional and elegant Fashion. Lately the trend has grown as a real phenomenon and fashion icons, tycoons, world leaders are now wearing their slippers outside.
Read more.

Looking for the perfect gift this Christmas? Why not have your slippers monogrammed? Send us an email at enquiries@handembroidery.com