Liberty storm | Dandy & Rose

June 10, 2014
by dandyandrose Leave a comment

A little subtlety, please….

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I’ve been a bit under the weather recently, so I’ve been taking it slowly with this commission for my very dear and longstanding friend Teresa Collins.

Teresa is a colour consultant and designer of beautiful bespoke rugs. You can see them on the Little & Collins website:

http://studioteresacollins.co.uk/

She’s got the sharpest colour sense of anyone I know (no pressure there then!) We’ve been shopping together for decades and it’s a standing joke that I will always choose the most vibrant colours available, while she goes for understatement.

One day when I was buying a piece of Liberty’s ‘Storm’ – in this colourway, which I used for Danny Champ’s shirt

back yoke https://dandyandrose.com/2014/03/14/danny-champs-shirts/

there was a friendly disagreement about which was the ‘best’ colourway So passionate was Teresa’s attachment to the beautiful dusky black, silver grey and caramel of her choice that she bought a piece and got me to make it up as a shirt.

The jury is still out on which colourway is the ‘best’; but I have to agree with her – this one is striking in its subtlety.

March 14, 2014
by dandyandrose Leave a comment

Danny Champ’s shirts

Back in October, I set off for The Palmeira in Hove to see Danny & The Champions of the World. I’d heard they were a great band but – wow! they turned out to be fantastic. They have it all. They have a wonderful collection of songs written by their engaging frontman, Danny Wilson; they have fun, but their mastery of their material shows that they have dedication and experience, too; and like any good country soul band, they have a steel guitar as well as a saxophone. And they have a new album, Stay True, that’s hardly ever out of my CD player.

The other thing they have is a large collection of check shirts.

But we’re working on that.

Not long after that gig in Hove, Danny got in touch and asked to talk shirts. Once we got together we bonded over our shared love of The Everly Brothers and an equal enthusiasm for this Liberty print, designed by the late Storm Thorgerson.

We put together an idea for a black shirt featuring Storm’s birds on the yokes and I scurried off to find the exact shade of orange to make piping. I added a feature rhinestone snap to the front and pretty soon I had come up with this:

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Danny also fell for a ruffled shirt with pearl buttons in Liberty’s ‘Joy and Sorrow’ that was hanging in my workroom when he visited. He put it on and it suited him utterly.

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Last week I had the privilege of seeing both shirts onstage when Danny & the Champs sold out The Jazz Cafe in London. Danny wore the ‘Storm’ shirt and saxophonist ‘Free Jazz’ Geoff Widdowson wore the ruffled shirt. What a thrill to see two Dandy & Rose shirts onstage at the same time!

Danny in his ‘Storm’ shirt Photograph by Billie MacAleer

Photograph by Billie MacAleer

Almost all the men in the audience were wearing check shirts, by the way. Let’s see if we can change that, too!

September 18, 2013
by dandyandrose 1 Comment

New collection

I’ve been working hard over the last few weeks on a new collection of shirts. The Dandy & Rose style has been evolving and I think these five new shirts capture it perfectly.

Joy and Sorrow

This dandy ruffled shirt is made from a stunning fabric from Liberty’s Autumn/Winter collection called ‘Joy and Sorrow’. Liberty say that the collection was inspired by William Morris’ poem ‘The Earthly Paradise’ and explores the senses that inspired Morris as he took in the world around him. Then – and this is a bit of a leap that I’m not sure about – this particular print is at least partly designed by the tattoo artist Mo Capoletta. Morris and tattoos are not something that I normally associate with each other, but anyway the print is exquisite. It’s a darkly gothic contemplation of the Liberty style that incorporates peacock feathers, strings of pearls and alarmed looking, but stunningly coloured, birds on a midnight blue background. I love it.

Instead of the usual snaps, I have used grey pearl buttons as a fastener, to reflect the pearls depicted in the print.

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Wendy Woo

I’ve posted about this print before – it’s a real favourite, featuring fans, ribbons and birds. These two new shirts are given an extra twist by the perfect pattern matching (no really, it was nothing!)

The blue shirt has double rows of stitching to help you know the yokes and pockets are there. I’ve kept it simple apart from the three coral snaps at centre front.

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Its grey partner is piped in softest dove, with facings and smile pockets in the same colour.

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Amelia Star

A few weeks ago, I posted pictures of a shirt I made in the grey colourway of this print. I had spotted this purple and lime version in the shop and couldn’t get it out of my mind. In the end I just had to buy a piece and here’s the result. Again, pattern matching, double topstitching and, this time, two contrast snaps.

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Storm

Finally, this powerful print took my eye – and my breath – when I was buying fabrics recently. Designed for Liberty by the graphic artist Storm Thorgerson for their 2011 range, it was based on his cover art for the Australian band Powderfinger’s 2009 album ‘Golden Rule’. Thorgerson, who died earlier this year, was perhaps best know for his design for Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of The Moon’. Liberty also have a design based on its iconic prism design. Hmmmm…

There are no western details on this shirt and it fastens with simple matt black buttons. The print is so strong, I felt that all I wanted to do was ‘frame’ it with black button bands, collar and cuffs.

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