About

I am going to be a tailor. And I plan on being a jolly good one, too.

Kick-off starts in earnest in September when I’ll begin the Bespoke Tailoring Pre Apprentice Course at Newham College (bit of a mouthful, I know… ). Come February 2015, I hope to have secured an apprenticeship with a master craftsman… where and who depends upon my tenacity and skill although I expect a fair sprinkling of luck would come in handy, too. I’m not one to settle for second-rate though, so rest-assured, I will be aiming high…

So the new chapter has begun. The road ahead is a long one, and I’m sure there’ll be a fair few obstacles to navigate along the way. And I have an awful lot to learn. An awful lot. However, I am a fiercely determined, insatiably curious, relentlessly experimenting lover of fabric, style, and making … and that’s not a bad place to start.

And just in case you’re wondering…  I don’t want to be a high flung fashion designer. Oh, no no no – that frantic, fickle world is definitely not for me. I want to be a craftsman. I want to learn old skills and keep them relevant. I want a sustainable career that I can work hard at but that doesn’t steal every hour of my day. I want to master something that I can do without the aid of a computer screen, an espresso and the latest copy of Vogue.

But whilst fashion isn’t my priority, I do love clothes. And I do have a strong interest in design. My penchant for vintage style has rendered my wardrobe a veritable musty time-capsule –  most of it, fragile, unwearable pieces that would really be better off in a museum (moths are my worst enemy). I’m constantly studying patterns from the 1930s and 40s and working on making my own vintage inspired clothing. There’ll be a lot of that on here, I should imagine.

This blog is a way of charting my tailoring progress and recording all the interesting things I come across along the way. The formal courses may not have started yet, but my mind has been whirring and my hands have been crafting for the past 25 years. And it’s high time I got some of it down on (virtual) paper.