(anticipatory music) - If you have watched
any of my New York City Garment District vlogs
you will probably know that I'm very fond of a particular street called, well, it is 39th
street, which is the one street in the New York City
Garment District that is quite known, not only
for supplying unique, often hard to find and one of
a kind fabrics from all sorts of international suppliers,
but they also carry a lot of overstock from big
fashion houses and designers. They buy up the excess fabric
that would otherwise be sent to landfill, sell it in their
shops for a hefty discount, the fabric does not go to
waste and everyone wins. London also has a sort of
equivalent of a 39th street. And while London doesn't
have a sort of centralized garment district as New York City does, there are fabric shops
dotted all over the city as well as a cluster of
them sort of in central that tends to be the more posh high-end and more expensive shops. The sort of 39th street equivalent primarily tend to be
located on Goldhawk Road. So that is where we are
going to go explore today. (beginning an adventure music) I have quite a lot of
sewing projects that I am hoping to get a good start on this summer once my working time
frees up a little bit. I am currently in the process of planning a bunch of projects. I have a lot of new
project inspiration in mind and a lot of garments
that I'm hoping to make. So I have a bunch of
projects tentatively in mind. I have been making lists
upon lists upon lists. I'm going to take the entire
list of projects with me. Obviously these are not
projects that are all going to happen at the same time. These are probably not
all projects that will be able to happen even in
the course of this year, maybe in the course of
next year, but I'm going to just see what sorts of
fabrics are out there. Maybe if I get inspired by
something and it matches something on my list. I do want to have the
list, just to sort of keep my mind to vaguely on track. I don't want to buy
something that's completely not on my list and then
have to add another item to my list because the list
is already quite extensive. So I will be trying to stick to that list. I do have a couple of
projects that I am really keen to get started on, so
some of those I do have fabric for in my stash. Some of them, I need
little bits and pieces for, some of them I actually
need fabric altogether for so I have made a list
of those items, as well as the bits and components that
I need to obtain for those. I will caution you I
actually do have a lot of really beautiful wool tweeds and stuff that I'm intending to
make garments out of. In fact, when I was
dreaming up my project plans part of my selection of certain
garments was because of, oh, this fabric has got to be
made into a split skirt, like there's no question about this. So some of the more like interesting and pretty fabrics have
already been chosen. I know that's like kind
of the interesting thing for you to see in a
garment-district vlog is buying the nice fabrics. A lot of the fabrics on my
list are like linen, cotton, stuff that's just super basic
and that I use so frequently that I need more of. So I don't doubt that I will
find something extraordinary and may or may not impulse buy it. We shall definitely see
what happens, but also maybe don't be surprised if I come home with a lot of cotton and a lot of linen. I love that shop so much. They have such great wools
and linens and silks. I did not buy anything yet
just because that is like the third stop that I've made and I'm hesitant to buy
something like immediately because then I'll have to carry it around for a million years but I
will probably go back there and buy some stuff, standby. First purchase has been made. This is just some super simple, just white sort of cream
charmeuse, which I'm going to use as a lining for a jacket
which I am planning. In other news, being back
in a garment district in these sorts of stores
reminds me so much of New York, just being
in these narrow alleyways just crammed with rolls of
fabric is so nostalgic, I guess. Although I will say the
one kind of nicer thing about the London garment district is that the salespeople here kind of
just mind their own business. They don't stalk you
around the entire store like they do in New York. If you are a regular
watcher of this channel you will know that I
primarily work in historical. I mean, the foundation of my work is in historical reconstruction so reconstructing historical garments as they hypothetically
would have been done in the past using historical methods and materials as much to our
modern ability that we can. But I also have been more
recently in a sort of lack of spare time, been working
on a lot of wardrobe projects. And so I do intend to continue
both factions of sewing. I have a ton of wardrobe projects that I would love to tackle as well as a bunch of like getting back to my historical reconstruction
roots with a couple of pre-19th century, which
means fully hand-sewn, projects. Those are going to be the
less visually interesting because those are the ones that
require just yards of linen. I'm going to be kind of shopping for both. That is all to say, as is the
nature of the way that I work, I will be primarily looking
for natural fiber materials which tends to be a little bit of a game of roulette when, at least in the New York City Garment
District in 39th street, sometimes they just wouldn't
know what the fiber content of these materials are
because they buy them off of other manufacturers
and other suppliers. Sometimes that information is
just not available to them. So you kind of never
know what you're getting until you get back and you do
a bleach test and you find out that the Lady Sherlock skirt wool that you thought was wool is actually
pretty much entirely polyester but we're not gonna talk about that. So that is all kind of to say, this is what I'm looking for today. I'm looking for natural
fiber materials to assist with some new wardrobe projects which my wardrobe projects, let's be real, are Edwardian, sort of
like 1890s to Edwardian. So they are based in history
but with wardrobe projects I don't mind the accidental
incorporation of, of a bit of synthetic, a bit of
intentional historical inaccuracy because it's not meant to be like an educational reconstruction. This place had such nice tweeds. If I wasn't putting myself
on a tweed-buying ban I may have done something
a little bit reckless. They also did have some
beautiful, stunning, like the finest (:|), the
finest weight printed cottons. So I will definitely be keeping that in mind for if and when I
require those in future. Let's move on. So I got the significant
impulsion to reconstruct a pair of 18th-century stays the other night and I'm like still
hardcore about that idea. So with garments, like
a pair of 18th century reconstructed stays, I'm going
to need these to be as close to the historical materials
as I possibly can be. So this is going to mean
making buckram myself because I'm not sure
that I'm going to be able to find linen buckram
that has been stiffened with natural materials and not with modern glutinous chemicals or whatever they stiffen
buckram with nowadays. So whilst we may enjoy swooning
over some sparkle sheers and some sequined fabric
and some metallic brocades and all that fun stuff, we will probably not be purchasing those in this vlog if that is what you are looking for. This is probably not the log for you but if you like some
tweed, well we will have some tweed content for
you because whether or not I bring myself to purchase any tweed, any more tweed because, oh my god, I have so much tweed at home, there will still be lots of tweed to look at, of course. (piggy squeaks) Honestly same. So I bought some fabric. As I anticipated, I
didn't really buy too many super-exciting fabrics,
mostly just essential stuff that I needed to actually get stuff done, i.e. linens and linings. First and foremost, I
got a couple of yard cuts of these silk charmeuses
which I'm intending to use as linings. I initially just bought this one which I was intending to use
as a lining for a jacket. I also have a split-skirt plan. I was going to line that
with the silk taffeta but then I realized that
that was probably going to be really loud and I feel
like I should line it with something a little bit softer. So I bought three meters of
this reddish silk charmeuse which will go with this tweed
which if you will remember one of my last Garment
District in New York City vlogs I bought this absolutely stunning tweed. Here's my irresponsible purchase. I found this bit of absolutely
stunning suiting wool that I hardcore want to
make into a waistcoat. I only bought one meter of it because it was really expensive. As I was on my way back
I was kind of having a little bit of an
existential crisis because when I was getting a couple
of fabrics cut at that store, he said, oh all of these are re-orderable, oh, except for this one and
then he pointed to this bolt and I said, oh, that's fine. I only need one meter it'll be fine. Then of course, on my way back I started having an
existential crisis because what if I want to make
a matching skirt to go with that waistcoat so that
it's a full like Victorian suit. But if I want to do that
I kind of have to make a decision soon and go
back for it because it's, it may or may not hang around. And if it doesn't hang
around, then that's it. If I end up making a waistcoat
out of this, I don't know, however many months from now and then realize I want the skirt like that's gonna be too late. So I think all of the
best purchase decisions are made when you do
not impulse buy a thing but you walk away from the
thing and leave the thing, and if you are still thinking
about the thing actively like a week later and actively want to go through the public transport
to go back to the place to get the thing, then you
know you truly want the thing and it's not just like you're
buying something impulsively that you aren't going to use. So I think this was
ultimately a good decision. The other excitement that I got, this is not really exciting at all but I got this beautiful brown linen. These are all from the same shop. This is from that shop that
I ended up going back to, by the way, I mean the
selvedge isn't great but it's good weight. It's nice fine linen, tightly woven. So this will be really nice for a pair of 18th-century stays
that I may or may not have impulsively decided to want to
make a couple of nights ago. I'm trying to tentatively
reconstruct this pair that's featured in Patterns of Fashion 5. I was looking for a, this is
actually a brown-linen twill. This is not a twill, but
this is a brown linen. I have one meter of this. I also bought one meter of this which is a loosely-woven linen. This I'm going to make into buckram. Buckram in the 18th century,
could be any manner of linen loosely woven, tightly woven,
old bedsheets, old sails. I really only need like six
square inches of buckram but I bought a meter of this just because. The one thing that I did not
find that I will probably have to source online is a couple of the stiffening interlining canvas layers in those days are made from hemp canvas. There are still some materials
that I require for this. So this is not entirely
ready to be cut out but materials are slowly
being amassed for this. I now have fabric for a waistcoat project. If I want to make a matching
walking skirt for this, still to be decided, we shall see. I now have all of the fabrics
for this split-skirt project. This may be my first project. Of course after I finish
ye olde Mary Poppins gown. And then of course, I
also have a jacket project which I now have the lining for, I already have the fabric for. I have every intention to be working on just a ton of projects all at once. I still have a couple of weeks of other work that has to get finished. So sewing things will
start up again in July but then we will be back into
the realm of sewing things. As you can see my work room is currently quite a bit of a state. My conclusions on the
fabric-shopping experience in London versus the fabric-shopping
experience in New York City which is different from the
fabric-shopping experience in other parts of America,
as well as in Los Angeles and that garment district as
well as elsewhere in the world. So do what this what you
will, but from what I found wools tend to be a bit cheaper which is super cool
because I love my wools. Silks tend to be about
same as in New York City which is to say that it's a lot cheaper than the rest of America
which tends to have a lot higher prices for silks. Linens and cottons, friends,
is so expensive here. I paid, I think, 18 pounds
for one meter of this which you would not get that in New York, you would pay maybe $10 for a yard of linen in the Garment
District in New York City. I didn't buy any cotton. I meant to buy some cotton and I didn't, I didn't find the right shade
that I wanted and quality. I also have a number of
just like household garments that I would like to make. Amway, stay tuned because I'm going to do a whole separate video on
discussing future project plans and sketching things
out and designing things and choosing fabrics and
it's gonna be a good time. So hopefully if you were interested you can stick around for that. Thank you very much for joining me on this wonderful adventure
to the London garment district which is obviously only just a fraction of the London possibilities,
I guess, in terms of fabric. There are places in Central,
which I actually have vlogged a bit of on this channel. So you can go check out
that video too, as well, if you like. We have a lot of work to do and hopefully I shall see you soon with lots more fun, sewing excitement. Okay, bye friends. It is a truth universally
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