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MARINA & HASAN

January 9, 2013 by Claire Sarah Barrett

First off apologies everyone for our missed post last month. As you can imagine things get a little frantic in the studio before Xmas and we got a little snowed under !

One of the very exciting things we were up to was this project for designer Hasan Hejazi. We were asked to create baroque inspired tonal cut work for three bespoke luxury evening dresses for pop goddess Marina from Marina and the diamonds. The project included some exciting names including Tim Bret Day (Photography), Thomas Knights (Film) and a suit for the designer by London tailor Gresham Blake.

Our designs and drawings were based on victorian florid ornament something that is very good to translate to cut work. You may have seen some previously in our work for the SIBLING bespoke hats last season. The initial designs and refining took a long time and the annotations and notes for the embroiderers even longer as there was so much detail involved.

The embroideries were executed in cutwork in colours to match the dresses with a fade to either lighter or darker. There were also a few crystals scattered about to add a bit of light.

The dresses were then put together over four days ready for the photo shoot.

Before the event we hadn’t seen any of the dresses, so we were very excited for the launch. The first we saw was the full length red piece which marina wore for her performance at the beginning of the night.

She then changed into the blue knee length dress which is our personal favourite !

The final pink dress was saved solely for the photo shoot, which you can see in the photos below. It was lovely to get a chance to flex our cutwork drafting muscles this thoroughly, so we are very grateful to Hasan for getting us involved ! A wonderful project all round.

SIBLING

January 9, 2013 by Claire Sarah Barrett

This year saw an incredibly exciting first for British fashion…… London Collections Men! The week started on Facebook with our menswear clients posting pictures of themselves with HM Price of Wales who opened the weeks festivities. Some were better than others …..

Hawthorne & Heaney of course jumped in with both feet and sponsored menswear label SIBLING for their gold work embroidery !

Another quick turnaround saw H&H producing Islamic style goldwork to be applied onto hand made base ball caps. The millinery was produced by internationally renowned milliner Noel Stewart. Juxtaposed against this H&H also produced and alternative goldwork for the collection in the way of provocative ANTI and PRO gold work text, which the brief told us was inspired by the london riots.

I appreciate that this blog was intended to be purely about embroidery in fashion but I really would love to point out SIBLINGs incredible work with knit ! Sequined knitted balaclavas came down the catwalk along side huge woollen head pieces and oversized sequin sweaters !

Since we have known them SIBLING have always pushed the boundaries of technique and we are really looking forward to working with them again this season on their womens collection !!

CLAIRE BARROW

January 9, 2013 by Claire Sarah Barrett

We all know how important education is, but few of us know how important fashion graduates are for setting the seasons trend in fashion. The final push is over and most have handed in for show selection. In my recollection this may have been the most stressful day of my life. This years GFW will be attended by all the head honchos in the fashion industry, talent scouts, bloggers and journalists and is the best way to get your career in fashion off the ground ! Not that it is needed for Hawthorne & Heaney’s latest darling Claire Barrow.

: Photo Matt Writtle

Claire Barrow is a 22 year old fashion design Graduate. During her compulsory year out at Westminster University Claire was supposed to take on an internship like most fashion design students. Internships are a valuable way to learn about the industry and I myself do endorse them very highly, but some cannot afford them or like Claire have more creative ideas on how to spend their time out. “I wanted to do something else, I was into my illustration and watching a lot of films starring bikers and punks with band names scratched into the backs of their jackets and the two came together some how”. Whilst waiting for some part time bar work to ‘come along’ Claire bought a leather jacket from a charity shop and began painting on it.

She then posted the image on her tumbler and Facebook and it was seen by Vogues fashion editor Francesca Burns and Mel Ottenburg, who was styling Rihanna for her Loud tour. Rihanna has gone on to buy two more leather jackets and she has just finished a capsule collection for the luxury label, Joseph.

Hawthorne & Heaney were lucky enough to work with Claire on her graduate collection. After being brought together by Robert Leach a tutor, who has had the pleasure of teaching many of the young upcoming stars in London, Claire worked on creating the full colour pattern pieces for the fully beaded dresses and head pieces in her collection. She then brought them to Hawthorne & Heaney where they were translated into tambour beaded panels with hanging paint drips off the exposed edges. After nearly two weeks of stitching from up to five embroiderers the panels were completed and totally blew us away.

We thoroughly enjoyed working with Claire and our other students this year and wish them all the luck in the world.

The combination of skilled craftsmanship and a young innovative design is something that H&H is very passionate about and supports with our young designers sponsorship scheme.

Keep your eyes peeled at Graduate Fashion Week beginning 10^th June. www.gfw.org.uk. With thanks to the Evening Standard and Matt Writtle.

LEE PATON

March 30, 2012 by Claire Sarah Barrett

Last nights event at Shoreditch Studios was one of our most exciting to date ! Lee Patons off schedule presentation of his AW13 collection Haakons Plateau. Inspired by the centenary of Captain Scotts ill fated expedition to the South Pole, the collection was beautifully tailored with an incredible variety of heritage techniques. Hand knit, crochet, taxidermy and of course hand embroidery.

The show itself was a beautiful evening with Hendricks Gin putting on complimentary cocktails whilst we waited for the show to begin then we were treated to a beautiful performance by Patrick Wolf and a string quartet, also with embroidery by H&H, who played as the show began. Check out our blog for MrXStitch for a sneak peak at the embroidery drafts for the project. Photos coming soon !

Thank you to Callum Watt at Maketh the Man for the beautiful photos !

JAMES LONG

February 22, 2012 by Claire Sarah Barrett

For their last (certainly not least) offering for LFW AW12/13 the designers at Hawthorne & Heaney had the pleasure of working with James Long.

One jacket topped with cornely chain stitch and military plate came out mid show giving us a taster of the finale which was a fully embroidered jacket covered in military plate, cloth of gold and solid gold smooth and rough purl.

The effect was incredible and H&H were privileged to work with a designer with the skill to use such ancient, intricate techniques with such a successful, modern application.

[Show slideshow]

Thank you to GQ for the images !

PPQ AW 12/13

February 18, 2012 by Claire Sarah Barrett

For their first show of the season Hawthorne & Heaney had the pleasure of working with Amy Molyneaux and the design team at PPQ. Working within one of their oldest specialties they produced antiqued military gold work Ps & Qs for the conceptual leopard print designed for PPQs ‘new, more sophisticated look’. The embroidery technique beautifully complimented Molyneaux’s inspiration for the collection of ‘the apocalyptic romance of winter’ adding more to the story written by their most recent collection “Black Out”.



Hawthorne & Heaney’s favourites included the gold work embroidered shoes and the Bram Stoker esque hood embellished with antique military gold work and Swarovki rondels.

OUR SCHOOL

February 14, 2012 by Claire Sarah Barrett

London Embroidery School is an embroidery School in Islington running as part of Hawthorne & Heaney. They run embroidery classes monthly in various techniques and sell specialist materials and equipment online. They believe in the art of hand embroidery and believe that these skills and equipment to anyone who has the will and the patience to learn. Our skilled tutors are all RSN trained, so you can learn at a professional level in a comfortable central london location.

OUR SCHOOL London Hand Embroidery

We are located 5 minutes from the station at Highbury & Islington and are very convenient for the buss, overground and tube.

Please email info@londonembroideryschool.com with any enquiries.

KANYE WEST

October 21, 2011 by Claire Sarah Barrett

This season the studio has been busy with a particularly interesting client with an exciting brief. We had to keep the project confidential during production but are now very excited to be able to share some photographs of the outcome.

We were approached by Louise Goldin’s team on behalf of Kanye West, and asked to advise on the design and production of an embroidered ladies jacket. This would be part of Mr West’s first catwalk collection to be shown during Paris Fashion Week 2011. With a tight lead time of two weeks this project had to be undertaken in our UK studio, enabling our team to respond quickly to the necessary revisions to the design whilst maintaining the exacting standards required for such an intricate piece.

A project like this required a huge amount of preparation, for example each one of the 1028 PP32 Swarowski crystals were placed in their settings by hand by the team.

In collaboration with Mr West’s team we produced a fully embroidered, diamante and beaded jacket depicting a tiger’s jaw and head markings.

This was an exhilarating and challenging project to be involved with and we thoroughly enjoyed working with Mr West and his team.