Readers,
Perhaps there’s an extra bedroom in your home stuffed with the paraphernalia of your sewing career: bolts of fabric, an old dress form, a sewing machine you no longer use but would never part with, garments you made that represent old sewing dreams (or nightmares), samples of fancy embroidery designs for special outfits, boxes of swatches for the important client you used to sew for, those fashion sketches you used to do, a scrapbook…
There’s hardly a square foot of clear floor space to get around, and you keep promising yourself you’ll put all of this in good order someday. But whenever you do need something, you can put your hand on it. And besides, you’re too busy getting things sewn to play curator, anyway.
My advice would be to follow the example of Hardy Amies Ltd., call this agglomeration your archive, and consider the job done.
After touring four leading tailoring companies two days earlier, I felt like I’d had a prime rib dinner: traditional, substantial, and long to digest . Our class’s late-morning visit to the Hardy Amies archive felt to me, by contrast, like the Victoria sponge cake we would share at our last lunch together as a class: traditional, too, but lighter, prettier, and prompting smiles.
Playing docent was Antonia, a cutter (if I recall correctly) for the fashion house; she advises and measures customers for men’s bespoke tailoring. Hardy Amies Ltd. no longer produces women’s wear, which I think a pity. If you don’t know Hardy Amies’ fantastic work of the 1940s and ’50s, check out some boards on Pinterest. But come back here; you’ll want to see this.
As the eight of us distributed ourselves the best we could in the tiny space, Antonia quickly recounted the career of Hardy Amies (1909-2003), which included facts about his famously tailoring his military uniforms in World War II and having financial backing to launch his own business from Cary Grant’s first (ex-) wife, Virginia Cherrill.
Antonia showed us Amies’ treadle sewing machine and motioned toward the rolls of fabric stacked on shelves making a fabulous sewing stash, but moved on quickly to the atlas-sized book with “THE QUEEN” stamped in gold on the cover.
When I asked three of my classmates, all British subjects, “When you think of Hardy Amies, what comes to mind?” their answers were
- the Queen
- the Queen, and
- the Queen
Not just anyone’s dress form
The Queen was Hardy Amies’ most famous client. Those bright-colored outfits (the better to be seen by crowds), with the coordinating hats and handbags–those were his.
Now our little group crowded around a scrapbook of photos and sometimes swatches of dresses and suits Amies designed for the Queen for public appearances at home and abroad.
I didn’t grow up in the British Commonwealth and was never a royals watcher–well, with one exception. When I was a college student in London in 1978 I got to see the Queen riding in an open carriage through the streets with Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu on his state visit.
I can’t say I remember what she wore. But in this photo from the Daily Mail the cut of the jacket certainly resembles the purple one in the album. Could it have been a Hardy Amies? Dependably elegant and dignified regardless of the circumstances?
But back to the archive. Antonia showed us some other womenswear pieces, and I realize now I assumed these were in production, but maybe they were individual commissions.
In either case, I admired the work in this jacket, which, unfortunately, my photographs don’t adequately convey. The main fabric is a tiny check or houndstooth, but part of the side panel is in a glen plaid. It’s a subtle pattern mix with the confidence to wait for you to discover it. We liked the pocket design, and the box pleating at the cuffs and at the hem of the coordinating skirt that reminded me of the box pleating I’ve done in soft furnishings.
We enjoyed the bold burnt-orange of a crisp silk blouse
and seeing elegant construction solutions to make a lace evening dress as functional as it is beautiful.
And Antonia showed us how comfortable and flattering a Hardy Amies dress is to wear.
Listening to Antonia’s stories of working in the village that is Savile Row, we wondered whether the archive provided a welcome retreat some days from high doses of masculinity. She agreed it did, and although she didn’t admit playing dress-up, she didn’t deny it, either. If she does, who could blame her?
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What a fabulous experience! Inspiring to see the sketch, the swatch and the photo. When I start sewing again. I am going to do that! What a great way to remember things that eventually move on. I think back on all of the wonderful projects that I completed in the peak of my sewing days and wish I would have had the foresight to document this. It may ease the resentment and regret that I feel for getting rid of that wardrobe, of a self expressed, well dressed younger version of me!
Loved this blog. Some great photos on a subject that I find fascinating. I am always amazed at the planning that goes into deciding the Queen’s wardrobe for her many visits. The fact that she re-uses them for other occasions often many years after the first outing is also very interesting – just shows what can be done with good quality tailoring…and that nothing ever goes out of fashion. The workmanship that you have shown us is remarkable.
I love Shelley ‘s thoughts! What fun it would be to have a documentation of all things sewn over a lifetime. And it really would not have taken a great deal of effort either when you think of it. My younger days were filled with great coats and suits that I needed for work and just gadabouting around as a much younger better dressed person! The queen’s outfits are really special.
It seems to me that the effort is in setting up whatever system makes the documentation easy so it doesn’t feel like more administration. It’s been my experience that by the time I’ve finished a garment I am so ready to be DONE that I give short shrift to the documentation. (Until I started a blog–but that’s another story!)
I am thinking of the documentation BEFORE the garment is complete.- Maybe a projects queue, then when it is done, it goes into a separate volume, with photo of self wearing the garment or item. It really would be quite easy. My fabric, pattern and even most of my button stash are photographed and cataloged and somewhat organized on my computer. I could easily pull photos together and create a collage for a future projects page. It would commit me to what to do with something and then I could just make it… or in this world….I could just….GET IT SEWN!
Yes, that’s it–have the documenting woven into the process rather than be an afterthought. I would love to hear from any readers who have done something like this, whether for personal reasons or in a work situation. I would ask them whether experiencing this documenting process has given them more perspective, or whether they had the personal or institutional perspective already, which dictated the process.
Given that you already have your collections inventoried (holy cow!), it seems to me that you could derive even more value from your investment of effort by taking this next step. You have documented the supplies; now document the processes and results. (Then I’ll bug you to teach me!)