Connect with:

Standard Blog Whole Post

Photographer Miro Arva went to No 6, Sackville Street, the longstanding traditional tailors’ building, to capture the new jacket produced by designer Lena McCroary. The jacket features embroidered pearl crocodiles, diamante fringing, gold work snakes and bees and an embellished peacock. Lena said: “All the embroideries were inspired by exceptional bejewelled treasures owned by opulent Mughal rulers. The idea for the peacock, for example, was taken from a brooch and hair ornament bought by Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala when, on his way to Spain in around 1905, he fell head over heels for 16-year-old dancer Anita Delgado.

“The reaction to this collection has been extremely positive, I think the jackets capture people’s imaginations, and highlight the dreamlike fantasy and excessive luxury of how the kings of this period lived. Using classic tailoring materials such as Prince of Wales checks and tweeds, gives a very interesting juxtaposition when combined with the embroideries. Almost like two worlds coming together, east meets west.”

www.sannelondon.com

Photographer Miro Arva went to No 6,

By Daniel Evans

David Hockney is 80 in July but he has never been so popular – or worked so hard. The biggest exhibition of his work is now open at the Tate Britain and looks at his evolution from a student to become arguably Britain’s greatest living artist. Hockney, clearly moved by the public’s continued interest in his work, said after he helped choose the 250 pieces of artwork that will be on display: “Many of them seem like old friends to me now.”

This exhibition offers an unprecedented overview of the artist’s work to date. Presented as a chronological overview, it traces his development from the moment of his appearance on the public stage as a student in 1961, through to his iconic works of the 1960s and 1970s, and on to his recent success at the Royal Academy and beyond.

Looking around the exhibition before it opened, Hockney, who still paints every day and recently said he was in his most prolific period, said modestly:  “I made some quite good pictures, didn’t I?”

The show, which includes more than 100 works made over more than half a century, is the first major look at his career in almost 30 years. It includes sketches from his time at art school to works drawn on his iPad at home in California last year. In a recent newspaper interview he said: “When I’m painting I feel 30 but when I stop I feel older. I’m a bit slower than I was but I stand up to paint every day.”

He went on: “It has been a pleasure to revisit works I made decades ago, including some of my earliest paintings. Many of them seem like old friends to me now. We’re looking back over a lifetime with this exhibition, and I hope, like me, people will enjoy seeing how the roots of the new and recent work can be seen in developments over the years.”

The invention of Hockney’s classic works is explored, including his portraits of family, friends and himself, as well as his iconic images of LA swimming pools. It also includes his celebrated Yorkshire landscapes of the 2000s and work made since his return to California in 2013.

The exhibition, the fastest-selling in Tate history – 20,000 tickets were snapped up in advance – will also show how the artist has frequently changed his styles and way of working, embracing new technologies as he goes. For the first time this exhibition shows how the roots of each new direction lay in the work that came before. For example, his radical ‘joiner’ assemblages of photographs, such as the Pearlblossom Highway 1986, informed the paintings of his Hollywood home and the Californian landscapes that he made then and after.

Exhibition curator Chris Stephens had one question for Hockney when the pair of them began to put the exhibition together. “What do you want people to feel when they leave?” I asked him. To which he replied: ‘Joy. I’d like them to leave looking more closely at the world because there is a lot of pleasure to be had from looking more closely.’

“David is a hugely popular artist and rightly we should be putting on shows that people want to see. But at the same time it doesn’t mean there is not something very serious about what he does. The fact they are visually pleasurable doesn’t mean they are shallow.”

Alex Farquharson, director of the Tate Britain, said: “David Hockney is without doubt one of Britain’s greatest living artists. His practice is both consistent, in its pursuit of core concerns, while also wonderfully diverse. Hockney’s impact on post-war art, and culture more generally, is inestimable, and this is a fantastic opportunity to see the full trajectory of his career to date.”

Following the showing in London, the exhibition will travel to the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.


The David Hockney exhibition will be at Tate Britain in London until May 29. Adults £17.50. Under 12s free – up to four per family adult. Family tickets available.

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/david-hockney

By Daniel Evans David Hockney is 80 in

David Ward, an experienced Savile Row tailor, has worked with some of the biggest names in the business, including Henry Poole and Huntsman. Here, he argues that Savile Row has a unique place in history which deserves to be protected.

Savile Row tailors are a nondescript bunch. Since their skills became the benchmark for British excellence they have generally been out-of-sight and voiceless. Down the ages, a general depiction of a tailor in any editorial was of an elderly bespectacled gentleman sitting cross legged, working with a piece of cloth.

As a senior cutter on Savile Row for over 20 years, my privileged access to this community has offered me an opportunity to redefine an outdated perception of these clothing savants, as the reality of what one looks like couldn’t be more different. From an array of backgrounds and cultures, all of them posses a passion to dutifully apply the skills that have been sharpened for over 200 years and credited as the best on the planet.

During my years spent working on Savile Row I have witnessed a supply of tailoring apprentices come and go and only a select few have been good enough to execute the required high standards that are sought. This wonderful art is now awash with youthful bespoke tailors, incredibly passionate, and still upholding the traditions put down before them.

However, Savile Row is currently in a state of flux as it is borders shrink and its fame plundered by anyone with the faintest interest in presenting themselves as a Savile Row tailor. My close relationship with these individuals and my interest in portrait photography has provided a platform to present these individuals for who they are and allow them to communicate their feelings and attitudes to the current climate that Savile Row currently finds itself.

Throughout history the word “tailor” has been used to describe an individual who simply makes clothing. There is a presumption that the person had engaged in extensive training, encompassing many hours of instruction and a set way of working with a piece of cloth that would eventually produce a finished garment.

After many years of repetitive instruction and dedication to steam, shrink, stretch, and manipulate a flat piece of cloth in a variety of weights and colours, a yardage of worsted is, metaphorically speaking, transformed from caterpillar to a butterfly, opulent and beautiful in its form.

The epicentre for this practice is still Savile Row. Having spent the last two decades as a cutter on Savile Row and embedded within the company of these incredible artisans, I can truly say that the word “brilliance” is far too reductive a word to quantify their ability. To be addressed, as a Savile Row Tailor is the preserve of a very special few and without doubt, these individuals are the very best in the world at their craft.

Hands that have crafted iconic pieces for everyone from Princess Diana to James Bond are still making the suits for current royalty, Hollywood glitterati and the rock stars of the day. Enquire with any one of them about the chronological duration to acquire their world renowned stamp of distinction and a response generally sounds like the following: “After all the years of doing this job I’m still learning something new every day.”

The tailor’s environment was historically found out of sight, among the higher floors of the houses, using natural daylight to illuminate their work. However, over the past decade they have been moved too less salubrious workbenches in the depths of assorted basements that litter Savile Row. The reason for this? Savile Row’s address has become incredibly desirable not only with ready to wear clothiers but also with hedge fund managers and art dealers who have deeper pockets to accommodate the latest rent rises from landlords.

This is where the industry has been literally cut down to size. But, more alarmingly, there has also been an increase in the amount of individuals who are revered as and sell themselves as “Savile Row” tailors with no qualifications or experience to honour such an exclusive earned title. It would seem that the occupational mantle of “Savile Row” tailor has become an easily tacked on moniker to anyone arriving in Mayfair intending to exploit the craft of this extraordinary location.

Savile Row finds itself in an era where plagiarists blatantly desecrate its unquestionable prestige and pay very little credit to its heritage and desperately toil to cultivate their spurious credentials through good PR. In spite of the ownership of a packet of nails I do not claim to posses the knowledge and experience of a certified builder yet there is an abundance of individuals who will use the title “Savile Row” tailor on the purchase of a packet of pins with neither proficiency to use the title legitimately and lack humility. With no questions asked and qualifications unchecked, another tailoring star is born and signed off by the media to prey on the Row’s success while the Row itself struggles to maintain its own identity in its natural environment.

It is heartbreaking, yet sadly expected in this age where immediacy is king, that we can observe one of the last true citadels of British craftsmanship being distorted and pillaged in this way. It would appear there are more fake bespoke tailors in London than real ones.

As the craft continues to be exploited for its mastery and distinction and the word “bespoke” that was born out of the tailoring industry is corrupted by the masses, selling everything from bespoke holidays to bespoke wallpaper, what of the Row’s future? Will the term “Savile Row” tailor become a reference to a bygone era, as tourist guides chaperone visitors to London streets to view what is left of this once incredible location that was swallowed up and devoured by the blandness of contemporary culture?

At a grassroots level there is a bountiful reserve of the right people coming into the trade to carry on the tradition of making clothing by hand, so that’s a good starting point. But if Savile Row as an industry can defend the erosion of its territory, method and vocabulary in a legal capacity in the same way the word champagne is ring-fenced to cease the theft of its name and produce, it might have the potential to see out another 200 years of excellence as a community of tailors, rather than a pursuit that is practised by the few who are left. One can only hope that, come tomorrow, Savile Row is left with a carcass full of flesh rather than a corpse that has been picked over and left for dead.

David Ward, an experienced Savile Row tailor,

Visit Oslo and the Nobel Peace Center should be essential viewing for anyone with a sense of history. Although Alfred Nobel was Swedish and settled four of his prizes in his home country, he decided that the prize for peace – initially one of the least controversial of his awards but how times have changed! – should be homed in neighbouring Norway.

Visit Oslo and the Nobel Peace Center should be essential viewing for anyone with a sense of history. Although Alfred Nobel was Swedish and settled four of his prizes in his home country, he decided that the prize for peace – initially one of the least controversial of his awards but how times have changed! – should be homed in neighbouring Norway.