drafting

We are delving back into the archives to revisit this really fun project we worked on for designer Hasan Hejazi in 2012. 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. 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.

Hawthorne & Heaney has had lots of request over the years to direct our embroidery expertise to apply some of our embroidery techniques to interiors. Occasionally we have dipped our toes into the interiors world, applying goldwork techniques and monograms to cushions and footstools for example but we thought we would also show you some of the inspiring work we have come across recently:

We also came across this lovely combination where wall covering meet embroidery as Custhom have incorporated embroidered stitches into the graphic design of this paper to add an usual relief element to your feature wall.

Within the same theme we also came across this inventive floor design by Lin Wei Ling Victoria who drilled and then embroidered into these floorboards.

Timorous beasties is a design studio up in Glasgow, founded by two friends, Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons who met and Glasgow school of art. They create fabrics and wallpapers in traditional arrangements but insert unexpected themes, mostly inspired by nature. Their work often has a reflective quality as they explore the relationship between, plants, animals and society, a theme that runs throughout their designs.

Barnaby Gates is another create duo, Vanessa Barnaby and Alice Gates who create really luxurious wall coverings using specially selected, traditional printing processes for each design. There is a quintessential Britishness to the brand as they choose to print in one of the last remaining print works in the Midlands and it provides the inspiration for most of their works.

In response to this, we thought we tun our hand to apply some of our embroidery expertise to interior design so working with a variety of brocades, this is what we produced:

If you have a special project in mind and are looking for a way to make it unique, get in touch.

Hawthorne & Heaney for Hasan Hejazi

Hawthorne & Heaney on Interiors