Saturday, February 2, 2013
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Trench coats: key fashion trends of the season
Arctic temperatures are on the wane and the snow has melted, but the winds are picking up. Keep the chill at bay in a trench coat. We've rounded up the 10 best high street buys, from vivid spring green and striking monochrome stripe to decorative lace effect and graphic check
British-made fashion is back in business
It is fair to say that I am more knowledgeable than most fashion writers on the subject of British clothing manufacture, both the loss of it to the far east and the reasons for its tentative return to our shores. My qualification? I'm married to Mary Portas, who 18 months ago reopened a defunct lingerie and nightwear factory in Middleton near Manchester, and brought it back to life by creating a self-funding knicker brand entirely made in Britain, by trainees fresh from the dole.
Living through the Middleton experience – oh, there were drama and tears – demonstrated the problems of the entire British manufacturing industry. This particular factory had closed in the mid-1990s when production moved to China, putting dozens of skilled machinists out of work. Over time, the town became depressed, shops closed, youth unemployment soared. In 2011, when Mary found them again, the machinists, nearing retirement age, were stacking shelves in Tesco, their skills – which should have been passed on to the next generation – withering away.
Today, that factory, though tiny by Chinese standards, is thriving. The machinists plucked from Tesco are back in charge and have trained 32 young people to make Kinky Knickers, fashioned from colourful Nottingham-made lace. In March 2012, when the not-for-profit brand launched, seven trainees were creating 300 Kinky Knickers a week. Last week, the 32 young machinists made 6,500 pairs of pants to be shipped to, among others, Liberty, John Lewis, Asos and House of Fraser. Yes, at £15, they do cost more than a Chinese-made knicker, but some customers are willing to pay for provenance.
In Cardigan, David Hieatt saw the same thing happening to his town. When the local jeans factory employing 400 of the 4,000 locals moved production to Morocco, he was compelled to launch his own jeans brand Hiut last February, and opened a factory employing 10 of the men he calls "grandmasters" to keep the skills alive and pass them on to apprentices. After a week he had so many orders he had to suspend his website for three months, though it is now back on track with fulfilment. "We lost the battle for cheap, but we can win the battle of quality, credibility and ideas," says Hieatt, whose business now crafts 100 pairs of handmade £230 men's jeans a week.
The unique selling point of these products is, of course, that they are Made in Britain, and all that conjures up, which is quality, credibility and a level of class. Something we British gave up on in favour of piles of three-for-a-tenner tat. Now, recession-bogged consumers are realising their purchasing decisions can make an impact on jobs and industry in the UK.
Traditional British clothing brands such as Mulberry, Burberry, John Smedley and Barbour trade on their English heritage, and all make some of their products here, but not as many as you would think. Burberry still makes raincoats in West Yorkshire, but the rest of its range is made abroad. Mulberry makes 30% of its products at The Rookery, its factory in Chilcompton, near Bath. This capacity will shoot up later this year with the opening of The Willows, a new handbag factory funded in part by £2.5m from the government's regional growth fund, creating 250 jobs.
The new faces of Made in Britain are not what you might expect. The Northampton shoemakers, the Scottish knitters and tweed weavers et al make up a tiny proportion of the industry. The real Made in Britain fashion action is happening where you would least expect it. Young up-and-coming designers including new label House of Hackney (it launches on Asos.com next week) and London fashion week boy wonder JW Anderson make every stitch of their clothing in Britain. Anderson's geek-chic clothing – for spring 2013 it's all outsize frill T-shirt dresses, and printed Japanese-inspired PJs – is being shipped globally. Knitwear labelSibling also endeavours to make as much as possible in the UK. "We are definitely returning to the good old days where Made In Scotland/Britain/UK is a badge of quality and heritage," says the label's co-founder Cozette McCreery.
However, the brightest hope of all for the British clothing manufacture industry is a gradual return of support from high-street chains, notably Asos.com and Topshop. This is being driven by simple economics. "The rising cost of labour, freight, raw material and fuel costs in China mean more high-street retailers are getting more made in the UK," says John Miln of the UK Fashion and Textile Agency. Indeed, Philip Green recently announced Arcadia Group had increased the number of British factories it is working with by 20% to 47. "We've been pushing to see what we could do to keep it nearer home," he said. "This is something we are looking at, every day, every week. UK manufacturing gives us a different capability."
Type "Made in Britain" into the search bar on Topshop.com and there is a wide range of pieces from cute T-shirts to chic tailored suits, and hipster leather Bermuda shorts on offer. "It's true, high street retailers are all increasing their Made in Britain offer," says Kate Hills of the influential blog makeitbritish.co.uk. "They have realised they need the capability to make in the UK, and if they don't build relationships with factories now, they will be gone."
American television's real Scandal
When Scandal, the new drama about political corruption in the US capital starring Kerry Washington was first previewed in America, the show's creator Shonda Rhimes remarked, somewhat caustically: "I think we were at a place where a non-white actor can be the lead in a television series a long time ago – I just think that people have failed to cast the actors they should have been casting."
Surprisingly, Washington is the first black female lead on network television in 38 years. Not since 1974 when Tessa Graves starred as a policewoman in the blaxploitation show Get Christie Love! has a primetime US network show featured a black woman as the main character.
Since then the roles for black actresses have typically been limited to supportive friend or snappy sidekick. Most recently, former Doctor Who star Freema Agyeman landed a supporting role in the upcoming Sex and the City prequel, The Carrie Diaries, fellow Brit Gugu Mbatha-Raw played one half of a husband/wife spy team in the swiftly cancelled Undercovers and former reality star Nene Leakes had turns in Glee and sitcom The New Normal.
Even Miranda Bailey, arguably the strongest character on the show that made Shonda Rhimes's name – Grey's Anatomy – is frequently relegated to the sidelines in favour of another smooch between Meredith and McDreamy.
As the crime novelist Attica Locke, who started her career as a scriptwriter, says: "When I was raising money for my first film [in the late 1990s] my lead character was a black woman and all the talk was about how could they raise the money for a film with a black female lead." The film was never made.
Yet Scandal, which is based on the experiences of Judy Smith, who is also black, ignores traditional studio lamentations about the marketing power of black actresses. Olivia Pope, the show's heroine, is both avenging angel and firefighter, She is a former White House communications director turned crisis-management expert – the sort of person who has the president on speed dial and is the first port of call for DC's players when the muck starts flying.
Small wonder then that Washington admitted "every actress of colour on the planet wanted this role". "[Olivia] is someone who happened to be born female and black and those elements add to who she is as a human being," she said in a recent interview with CNN.com. "Do I think another person of another race could play her? Yes. Do I think it would change the story a little bit? Do I think it would change the character a little bit? Yes."
There are already signs that audiences will not have to wait 38 years before seeing another woman of colour starring in a starring role. The much-anticipated Infamous, starring Meagan Good, starts on NBC next year.
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