Hand and Lock Embroidery

‘Here come the pearls’

We all knew it was going to be an exciting and challenging project when a representative from Richard Nicoll came to us 3 weeks before his S/S 2008-09 show with pattern pces in one hand and hundreds of packets of mauve coloured Swarovski pearls in the other!

Richard Nicoll commissioned us to embroider 3 of their show piece garments; these being a very cute mini skirt, knee length slim fit shorts and a structured, fitted one shoulder peplum top. All three were to be completely covered in rows of Swarovski pearls, one after the other, not leaving in inch of the fabric showing through! With the same 1cm wide mauve coloured pearls, we also embroidered a collar piece and the collar and cuffs of a chiffon blouse and large silver Swarovski pearls on a duck egg blue chiffon blouse.

Just one packet of these pearls weighed over 200 grams, so we soon realised that these garments, when completely covered in thousands of pearls, were going to be incredibly heavy. We estimated that we would use approximately 6000 pearls on both the skirt and shorts and over 10,000 for the top! So that’s nearly 5kg for the skirt and shorts and 8kg for the top, probably the heaviest garments on the catwalk!

Our experience of handling all types of fabrics and materials at Hand & Lock, told us that we would definitely need to use an organza backing to support Richard Nicoll’s crepe fabric, as the sheer weight of the pearls would completely distort the shape of the garments and we certainly didn’t want that to happen! Once the preparations were finished, Sara, our RSN trained hand embroiderer and beading specialist, got straight to work!

The majority of the pearls were applied by the technique tambour beading which is the most time effective method of beading a large surface area and was perfect for the clean, linear look that Richard Nicoll was trying to portray with the pearls. The areas around the seams and darts were then individually hand sewn once all the pieces had been made up. It was fabulous to see the transformation from the many pattern pieces to the finished garments, as each garment looked beautifully finished and the rows upon of rows of pearls really caught the eye. We all couldn’t wait to see the garments down the catwalk!

The Richard Nicoll show was held at ‘The Shop at Blue Bird’ on Wednesday 17th Sept at 9.30am, although very early, there was a great buzz of energy in the air. As Hand & Lock were a sponsor of his show, we took our seats and got ready to see the outfits we had embroidered! As the show progressed, it was clear that the mauve and silver pearls were a key theme to his S/S collection, as many of the outfits were styled with accessories using the same pearls. The pearl blouses were the first garments to come out from behind the screens, which we had embroidered. They looked fabulous and stood out from the outfit, the pearls around the collar and cuffs looked very elegant and crisp. The pearl covered skirt, shorts and structured top were left for the closing of the show, each outfit styled differently but done very successfully and those thousands of pearls certainly did turn heads and make the audience prop up on their seats! It was a great feeling happiness and satisfaction! I can’t wait for A/W 2009-10!

Sana Uddin

Studio Manager
Hand & Lock

Posted on Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 1:02 pm. Read on: Events, In the press, News.
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