Tweed

Tweed is lovely stuff, woven out of pure wool in Scotland (and Donegal). It was originally coloured with vegetable dyes, and it is still known for its subtle, muted shades. How could you not love it? And with eco being in fashion, how could it not be cool? And it could be about to make a comeback. Read all about it at Fast Company.

Somehow it has become code for conventional, middle class and stuffy.

Designers are always trying to bring back tweed, but fashion writers can’t mention it without dragging in Miss Marple. Ladies of her vintage would get a tweed “coat and skirt” (it was common to call it a suit or costume) tailor made, and wear it for the next 20 years. The idea was to have a few expensive clothes of good quality that would last, and last.

Stuart didn’t listen to The Killers: “I always knew they were overrated and now they turn up on David Cameron’s tweedy iPod playlist to prove the point.” Guardian, January 9, 2006

Its details will be remembered by him, and by tweedy historians, and by no one else. Guardian, November 3, 2005

Luddites will twitch uneasily in their tweed trousers. Guardian, March 12, 2006

Most people in the media were tired of aristocratic old men in tweed jackets. March 12, 2006

A tourist board England of guardsmen and tweedy butlers. Times, July 20 2006 (Butlers wear black coats and pinstriped trousers.)

Stodgy, tweedy Vaughan Williams – who could get into that? amazon.ca

From an era when most British architecture was too tweedy and austere for comfort. Guardian, May 30, 2007

I’ve spoken at more literary festivals in more charmingly tweedy English market towns than feature in Arthur Mee’s King’s England. Simon Montefiore, ES mag, July 6, 2007

Tolkein knew how to put the twee into tweedy. Observer, June 24, 2007

Although he is a young, good looking man, his bearded, tweedy appearance tells the world he feels unloved, and doesn’t see the point in loving himself… iofilm.co.uk

So, despite the almost tweedy image she has fostered, I have to confess, Ruth Kelly exudes youth and energy. atl.org.uk (That’s not “almost tweed” she’s wearing, it is tweed.)

A website focused on the overdevelopment and “tweeding” of the borough of Queens in the City of New York

Ian adjusts his frameless specs – His overall demeanour’s tweedy. Guardian arts blog commenter on Ian McEwan, January 2008

The C30, a compact two-door hatchback, rips a sizeable hole in Volvo’s careful, tweedy image. (crash.net)

Decor Sins

Lladró figurines

Capo di Monte figurines

Avocado or grey suite

Valance on bed

Wardrobe and overhead cupboard combo

Artex ceilings

Woodchip wallpaper

Fake leaded windows

Flintstone fireplace

New, shiny repro furniture

Wall lights with pseudo candles (plus wax drips)

Pebbledash

Corner sofas

Horseshoe sofas

Marshmallow furniture

Shell-backed sofas (especially in patterned dralon)

Indoor wood panelled ceiling and walls

Victorian pub décor especially when the pub is in the basement of a concrete tower block/on the corner of a 70s railway station/in a shopping mall/in a tin hut in the middle of Paddington Station

Stone cladding – now popular inside too

Crazy paving

Faux beams

Carpet in the bathroom/kitchen

Combined light and ceiling fan

Tartan wallpaper/carpets/furniture

Different coloured walls

Swirly carpets

Shaved shag pile

Pub carpets (even in pubs)

A bath in the bedroom

The 80s Home

Wearing stone-washed jeans, big hair and a pastel cardigan with a lace collar, you stood in the middle of your lovely room and admired the:

Flowery wallpaper and  flowery dado strip

Chintz and stripes

Stencils

Pleated coolie-hat lampshades

Swagged pelmets

Tart’s knicker blinds

Knickers for comparison

Collectibles

Dried flowers

Miniature straw hats hung on the wall

Corn dollies

Pine, pine, pine

Navy/jade/burgundy/ochre tiles

Plastic tablecloths with kilim print

Carpet with diagonal pink and jade splashes (on grey)

Ceiling with diagonal boards.

Bathroom with diagonal tiles.

Thank you, Ann Maurice and Colin and Justin for turfing this stuff out of people’s homes.

There was another trend: high tech. It consisted of bolted-together scaffolding and sheets of aluminium with holes, like offcuts from some industrial process. It went with mugs printed with large green graph paper and men with red-framed glasses.

And there was a 30s/Chinese inspired trend with black lacquer furniture and bedroom suites with pink, shell-shaped mirrors.

Mirrors featured largely, and prints by Patrick Nagel.

On your glass/bamboo/chrome coffee table was a fibre-optic lamp or a lamp with a hand holding a globe. They’ve vanished so utterly I can’t find a picture of one – if anybody knows a supplier, please tell me!

The 90s weren’t much better. Favourite colour combinations for rooms were chrome yellow with French blue, and lilac with mint. Heavy wood furniture and check curtains went with the first; muslin curtains and wrought iron furniture with the second. And there was a terrible rash of swirly designs with that hand-painted look.

The 70s Home

Wearing loons, a tank top and Farrah flicks, you stood in the middle of your lovely room and admired the:

White trellis

Potted ferns

Potted rubber plants

Potted avocado plants

Bamboo wallpaper (with white trellis)

Brown or dark green walls, fitted carpet

Bright walls, white furniture

Dressing Too Old

Circa 1970, senior ladies all sported a turquoise mac from C&A, kneelength, frock coat style with faux gilt buttons. They teamed it with thick American tan tights. Under the mac was a white orlon cardigan. We’ve moved on since then and have new fashion misdemeanours to avoid.

If you are a femme d’un certain age, avoid pegtop trousers with a knife-edge pleat. They lingered on in M&S for far too long. These ones aren’t nearly nasty enough. In fact, they’re almost nice (and they’re from the Alexandra Workwear catalogue).

And please don’t team them with a polo shirt – especially not in jade. Even if wearing one makes you flash your whitened teeth with joy.

A bi-coloured anorak is just the wrong thing to top off this outfit. It could be worse – it could be purple and jade.

Another nono is the fleece. Much too practical.

When out rambling in this costume, avoid tying your jersey round your waist.And whatever you do, don’t team the ensemble with stone lace-ups.

And please, please, not the purple with the red hat.

How to Wash Lace

Take some clean old white muslin and sew it round a large bottle full of cold water. Wrap the lace carefully around the bottle. To prevent wrinkles tack one end of the lace to the muslin. Take a clean sponge soaked with sweet oil, and saturate the lace thoroughly through the wrappings to the bottle which is to be fastened by strings in a wash kettle. Pour in a strong cold lather of white castile soap and boil the suds until lace is perfectly clean and white. The bottle should then be placed in the sun to dry. Remove the lace and wind it round a ribbon block or press. Soap jelly may be used for washing lace – afterwards rinse in cold water.

To tint: After rinsing dip in weak tea or coffee. Black lace should be quite cleared of dust by brushing with a soft brush. Soak it in prepared tea containing 1 dessertspoonful tea, 2 teasponfuls gum arabic, and 3 pints boiling water. Iron under tissue paper.

From The Woman’s Own Book of the Home, 1932

“Some people wash it in sugar and water, and some in coffee, to make it the right yellow colour. But I have a very good recipe for washing it in milk, which stiffens it enough, and gives it a very good creamy colour.” Mrs Forrester in Cranford.

Don’t Wear That

The girl on the right is called Frankie van Heel and she’s married to British MP Andy Burnham. (He’s in trouble for creative expensing, but that’s not important right now. So are a lot of other people.)

Frankie wore this outfit for the unveiling of a statue of the beloved Queen Mother. But it would be inappropriate at a wedding. It looks like a bad fashion mistake circa 1965. Here’s where she went wrong.

1. Dress and coat of different lengths. Worse, a minidress with a maxicoat.

2. Crumpled hat jammed on the wrong hairstyle.

3. Vast, limp red corsage.

4. Bare legs.

5. Red shoes.

A white lace minidress isn’t quite right for a memorial. It’s not quite right on anyone over 21. If you must wear one, don’t team it with a coat from another outfit. Especially not a coat without lapels.

The beige straw hat doesn’t match anything else she’s wearing. The wide brim doesn’t match the occasion. It isn’t even new. She doesn’t have enough hair for it (short hair suits a fascinator, beret, pillbox or cap).

Ballet Horrors

In the early 19th century, dancers wore filmy kneelength tutus. Basically they were cut-off versions of Victorian dresses.

The tutu mutated. In the 1950s, thanks to nylon net, it turned into a disc.

Which had the added benefit of showing the dancer’s knickers. It no longer looked like an abbreviated dress. It looked, well, ludicrous.

If you want to become a ballet dancer, a high forehead is a must.

And this looks painful:

Is it any better than this?

But it’s worse for men.

They have to wear tights.

Calais Lace Museum

On 11 June, La Cité Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode (the International City of Lace and Fashion) opens in Calais, northern France. Its new building, by Alain Moatti and Henri Riviere, is on the site of an old lace factory. Some of its space is taken up by a history of lace-making, from hand to machine. Calais was a centre of machine lace, using methods and hardware imported from Nottingham. There’s also a restaurant, a shop, a library and a “tissutheque”.

Crocheted Dresses and More!

From South American company Rodel. See all their amazing output here.

This sweater is called Beltane and is made of 100% polypropylene.

Other masterpieces are called Green Man and Hard Rain. Is this whole collection on collision course with a late 60s folk rock album? They claim their crochet swimsuit is unique. We hope so.