Friday 20 March 2009

Golden Shears Award 2009

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Rising Star, Andrea Michelle Nixon of Steed Bespoke Tailors has come 3rd in the highly prestigious Golden Shears Award 2009, while also scooping the Rising Star award.


1st, Rory Duffy of Henry Poole's

2nd, Paulo Nicodemi of Anderson & Sheppard

3rd, Andrea Nixon of Steed
Andrea who is just 22, graduated from the University of Cumbria with first class honours in her Contemperary Arts Degree back in November.

The Golden Shears Award is a national competition & is open to trainees in the tailoring industry and students who were on dedicated tailoring courses. The competition received around 60 entries from which 26 made the finals. This was held on Monday 16th March, at the Merchant Taylor's Hall on Threadneedle Street, London.

The entrants were asked to design and make a fully tailored garment to specific measurements.

The 1st stage of judging was back in January in which the entries gained marks on the Design, Cut, Tailoring and Style.






The final stages were judged based on the fashion style of the garments, whilst being worn by professional models on the catwalk.

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Andrea created a jacket and skirt for the competition. She began by hand dyeing yarns, which she then wove into cloth herself. She had to do this using a hand weaving loom. The cloth design was based on natural patterns such as animal prints and rippling sand textures. The colours dervived from peacock feathers. She also hand dyed silk, which she used for the lining of the jacket. Once she had made the garments she then hand embellished them with beadweaving and crystals. To complement the outfit she made a belt to accentuate the waistline, aswell as matching handbags.


Andrea was so pleased with the result as the standard of all the entries was so high. As well as the prestige Andrea also won £1000 and a trophy to remember the wonderful evening.
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Andrea pictured alongside David Furnish & the Model wearing her creation.
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2 comments:

  1. That's phenomenal work by Andrea. I don't think many tailors in the world know how to dye their own fabric and silk. Well done!

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  2. Thank you for your comment.

    Andrea began by dyeing the lambs wool for the warp of the cloth and then randomly dyeing cotton yarns for the weft.

    She then set up the hand weaving loom and wove 14 meters of cloth.

    The silk lining was Shibori dyed, which is a form of tie dyeing, to produce a interesting pattern on the silk.

    The pattern reflects the weave of the cloth on the main jacket.

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