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!
I did a lot of thinking before I cut into this fabric!
‘Agandca’ is one of the most intriguing Liberty prints I have worked with. It is based on a 1910 design from the Liberty archive and the complicated pattern looks a bit like embroidery. It’s arranged in wide stripes – but unlike your average stripe, they are asymmetrical.
Cue shirtmaker headache.
I decided to use the stripe by cutting the yokes and pocket flaps ‘on the bias’ – I explained what that means last time I used the technique here
The three strokes in that cross motif in the design inspired me to finish the shirt with a triple line of topstitching.
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!
Around the world, 2016 has been in many ways a strange, sad and alarming year .
But looking back on my own year brings many good memories and moments of achievement. I survived the grilling that came with passing the halfway point of my PhD and had a productive – and fun- research trip to Nashville. A definite high point was having a Dandy & Rose shirt put on display in the Country Music Hall of Fame’s ‘Featured Western Wear Designer’ exhibit. It’s such an honour: I don’t think I’ll get my head around it until I see it in person, which I hope to do in 2017.
I wrote a lot of words and made a lot of shirts in 2016.
Now for 2017!
Wishing followers of this blog a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!
David’s shirt in Liberty’s paisley ‘Lagos Laurel’
It’s been a grim, foggy weekend, full of undone Christmas preparations, so I have been glad to have this sunny yellow paisley shirt to focus on.
The fabric is Liberty’s paisley ‘Lagos Laurel’. I seem to recall that is a 1930s print from the Liberty archive. They reintroduced it to the range in 2012 in honour of the London Olympics – see the little laurel wreath tucked in amongst the paisley motifs?
I have made several shirts in Lagos Laurel previously…
but I haven’t used this lovely, rich, buttery yellow before. And I don’t think I have used yellow snaps before either. What a joy!
Jim Lauderdale’s shirt in Liberty’s print ‘Wiltshire Berry’
Last week I was in something of a panic because this shirt had dropped off the postal radar: last recorded as leaving Heathrow, the US postal service had no record of it. But in a minor Christmas miracle, it reappeared on its way from New York to Nashville on Monday and arrived just in time for Jim Lauderdale to wear it on the festive edition of Music City Roots, the weekly live radio show he hosts, a couple of days ago.
I always think this red colourway of Liberty’s classic print ‘Wiltshire Berry’, shouts ‘CHRISTMAS’. I have given it green piping and a celebratory mix of green and red snaps.
At the end of the show, Jim led the jam session that closes Music City Roots in the Chuck Berry classic ‘Johnny B. Goode’. I’m sure the pun was unintended but – well, a classic berry fabric and a classic Berry tune: what could be more pleasing?
Click here to watch a video clip of the jam.
I’ve just finished my first commission from a married couple. The shirts went off together in the post today and it’s lovely to think of them being worn together.
If you would like to know how to order a bespoke Dandy & Rose shirt of your own – or maybe for your significant other – click on the SHOP tab at the top of this page.
Dandy & Rose 