Old Tart(an)

Amid my wardrobe I have old favourites; pieces that, despite their age, continue to receive admiring glances and coos of approval whenever I wear them. One of these particular items is a tartan jacket. What makes this jacket especially special is that it was made by the artistic hands of my best bud, Claire. I thank/blame Claire for my dressmaking addiction. She studied textiles at the London College of Fashion and the jacket of which I speak was one of the items in her final graduate collection that I proudly modelled for her. I’m not entirely convinced that I was supposed to step off the catwalk, walk out of the venue and keep the jacket on forever more, but I did.

(Just shows how memories can fail, I was convinced that I wore this jacket but I've just watched the video back over and it was actually worn by someone else, which means at some point I mugged that Polish model of her clothes...)

Whenever Pat, my mother-in-law-to-be (well, he’ll ask me one day…) sees me in the jacket she makes repeated vowel sounds of ‘ooooh’ and invariably ‘aaaah’ and tries it on all the while declaring how perfectly it fits her. By rights I should give her the jacket. Over the years Pat has given me a sofa, several beds, crockery, handbags, furniture and her son. In fact it was Pat who gave me the money to buy a sewing machine for my birthday. I know I should give her the jacket, but I just can’t bring myself to hand it over, I love it too much.

Now when I say I thank/blame Claire for my dressmaking addiction, it’s not because her enthusiasm rubbed off on me. Hells no. There was many an occasion when I would turn up to Claire’s house with a Chinese takeaway by way of down payment and request that she make me a dress to wear to a wedding the following day. I didn’t so much as sew on a button with my own little Luella on hand. But then the unthinkable happened. A gorgeous kiwi farmer went and married Claire and whisked her off to New Zealand. Suddenly I had to sew on my own buttons (after a brief spell of thinking that clipping them on with safety pins was making some kind of sartorial statement). From buttons I progressed onto hemlines and eventually whole garments. When I found myself at the stage where I could make a jacket for Pat myself, I was still reluctant. Firstly, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to pull it off and secondly, it seemed a bit sacrilegious. With the fabric laid out in front of me I felt a bit like Frankenstein standing over the body parts that would ultimately become a monstrous creation…

Although I have changed the main fabric to a green suedette and pink tartan, and have pinned the lapels back using brooches to make it different, it still feels like a pale imitation of the original.

That's not to say that I'm not pleased with the outcome, I am, but it has taught me that one-off works of brilliance are just that. One-off.