With its delicate old fashioned blooms, this shirt lives up to the Dandy & Rose name.
This is a deceptively simple print – there are several shades of orange and peach blending in those roses and the stems and leaves are a gentle olive green. I have loved working with it and giving it those orange accents.
Bill DeMain is a very talented man. He is a journalist who has interviewed all your musical heroes; an accomplished musician and songwriter based in Nashville; the entertaining and astoundingly knowledgeable tour leader of Walkin’ Nashville; and a recently converted Francophile.
Bill visited Paris last year and fell in love with the city. During March, he returned for one of those total immersion language courses and kept his instagram followers entranced with photographs of the things he saw (and ate) while in The City of Light.
When Bill asked me for suggestions for his third Dandy & Rose shirt, this wonderful Arts and Crafts style print by Liberty leapt right into my mind. It seemed like such a fun way to acknowledge Bill’s love of France. And just look at that frog, with his little toes!
It can get hot out there, walkin’ Nashville, so Bill likes short sleeves. I like short sleeves too, and leap at the opportunity to make them.
I have been waiting for an opportunity to use this print ever since it came out last year. I’m so glad that one has has hopped along.
OK. That’s enough corny frog jokes. Unless you know any.
What a great fabric choice my new Californian customer, Joe, has made! This print is from the current Liberty of London range. It completely removes the need to make a decision that many of my customers struggle with: floral or paisley? It has them both!
Joe opted for lots of piping and ‘smile’ pockets.
I have placed one of my signature contrast pearl snaps in line with the yoke….
… and added an extra yellow snap to each sleeve placket. It just seemed like the right thing to do.
I have been dying to post photos of this shirt! But I’ve been waiting for the all clear, as it was a Christmas gift from a brother to his sister – so I am not sure whether his choice of a fabric called ‘Queen Bee’ was a comment on their respective roles in the family! 🙂
At any rate, she was reportedly very pleased to receive it – and it is a very special Liberty print, one of those where you spot more and more detail as you look. I love the crown that the bee seems to be placing on her own head!
Thor Platter has a new album coming out in October, which I can’t wait to hear. He asked me to source a Liberty print with a retro look, in dusky browns, greens and oranges, to chime in with the artwork for the record sleeve.
It took about a week, but finally I remembered filing this one away at the back of my brain.
So retro!
This year has been such a busy one for research, writing and shirtmaking that I have got rather behind with this blog.
So here are all the shirts I have made so far and not blogged about:
First up a marvel of symmetry in Liberty’s William Morris-designed print ‘Lodden’. It belongs to Thor Platter, a singer songwriter who tracked me down at last year’s Americana Music Association Festival in Nashville. I’m very glad he did!
Then in February, I came across some of one of my favourite out-of-print Liberty designs, a psychedelic paisley called ‘Forty’. So I snapped some up and made two shirts: a black one with red piping for redoubtable Americana tour manager, Andy Washington; and an all-over print for Jim Lauderdale.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Sixties men’s fashion recently and just for fun I made this ruffled shirt in another psychedelic Liberty print that has been a favourite:
Find this one for sale in my online shop
A few months later, I was commissioned to make another shirt in the same fabric, this time in a western style:
As summer arrived, I made a couple of short sleeved shirts. The first was for a young man looking for something special for his birthday party. He chose the classic Liberty peacock feather design, ‘Hera’ and went for a non-western style.
The second was made from vintage fabric that I bought from a lady who inherited it from her mum. There was quite a collection and it was hard to choose, but this was one of my favourites:
Finally, this shirt in a sweet, fresh Liberty floral was commissioned as a gift from a husband to a wife. I love being part of that!
Yokes that turn into pocket flaps are an established element of western wear design. I’ve had it at the back of my mind to try some on a Dandy & Rose shirt, but the idea really took hold when I was doing some research for my PhD in the Nudie’s archive in The Autry Museum of The American West a few months ago. I kept seeing jackets in the style and was suddenly inspired to try the same thing, but with mixed prints.
My friend and customer Bill DeMain, who is a songwriter and journalist as well as running Walkin’ Nashville, a fun and informative walking tour of Nashville (where, in fact, he and I met), gave me the chance. He picked out a Dandy & Rose favourite, the Liberty paisley, Lagos Laurel. I suggested mixing two colours of the print, and Bill opted for blue and red. Although it’s now a Liberty classic, ‘Lagos Laurel’ was introduced in 2012 in celebration of the London Olympics, and features a laurel wreath in amongst the paisley motifs.
Dandy & Rose’s biggest champion, the Grammy-winning singer songwriter Jim Lauderdale, toured the UK during July and excitingly, he played in Lewes, the hometown of Dandy & Rose!
Jamie Freeman of Union Music Store, who is also a singer songwriter, suggested that after the show, we might be able to set a world record for the most Dandy & Rose shirts worn in the same place at the same time. And we did!
Left – right (back row) Jamie Freeman, Stevie Freeman, Alasdair Mackay, Andy Washington, Michael Hingston (front row) Jeff Tickle, Jim Lauderdale, me (Janet Aspley), David whose second name I don’t know!
It seemed wrong that Jim didn’t have a new shirt for his tour, so the following week we picked out a print from Liberty’s current range called ‘Wild Flowers’. It was designed by the paper cutting artist Su Blackwell, who says it reflects her childhood experience of wandering the countryside, discovering native flora. Su’s work is stunning and you can see more of it here: sublackwell.co.uk
Just as I was giving the shirt a final press before dashing up to London to deliver it to Jim before his London show (which was great!), I noticed the word ‘Strawberry’ hidden amongst the stalks and leaves in the design.
How wonderful to work with designs that are so detailed and exquisite that there is still something to discover in them when you have been looking at and handling them for many hours!
Jim teamed his new shirt with a pair of sparkly, embroidered trousers by Manuel. The combination was marvellous!
Jim Lauderdale in his Dandy & Rose shirt in Liberty’s ‘Wild Flowers’ print, onstage at King’s Place, London, July 27th 2017
Dandy & Rose 