All is not as it seams
Sewing Bee’s Esme loves to create lavish outfits but her own wardrobe is more modest,
SHE’S made costumes for Hollywood A-listers Leonardo DiCaprio and Renee Zellweger but The Great British Sewing Bee judge Esme Young keeps it simple when it comes to her own wardrobe.
The 73-year-old, who has been making her own clothes since the age of seven, says she prefers re-wearing her own creations and admits one trip to Primark left her so traumatised she never went back.
Esme, who judges alongside Scots tailor Patrick Grant on the hit BBC show, also says she has stopped buying new clothes and chooses to make do and mend.
The fashion designer, who has just written her autobiography, Behind the Seams, said: “I’ve never really been into designer clothes. Also I can’t afford them.
“Because I design and make clothes for myself, I don’t feel the need to make designer clothes.”
“I haven’t got a huge wardrobe. I put my summer clothes under the bed when it’s winter and then I have quite a few trousers and dresses I’ve made.
“At my workshop, I’ve got a an archive, where I’ve got old clothes of my mum’s and of mine.”
“I’m stopping buying clothes and want to re-wear clothes I’ve got. All I need to do is change the necklace and people won’t notice.”
Esme, who created the iconic bunny outfit worn by Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones’ Diary, added: “Years ago, I bought something from Primark. I went in and it was a feeding frenzy.
“There were clothes all over the floor. It was chaotic and shocking. If you see a T-shirt for two quid, you could think, ‘Well, I’ll buy that because I might wear it and it doesn’t matter if I don’t’.
“The other thing about buying clothes is that it’s a treat and it makes people feel better – but that feeling doesn’t last very long.”
Esme’s career in the fashion industry came into focus in the 70s, when she and three other female designers launched Swanky Modes, a cool collective in Camden Town.
Swanky Modes designed the figure-hugging Lycra dress popular with nightclub-goers in the 70s and 80s, which became known as the Amorphous dress.
The talented seamstress admits one of the few mistakes she has made was while sewing a costume for a stripper.
She said: “When I was at Swanky Modes – we were making an outfit for a stripper, and there was this huge cape with a train. I was overlocking it late at night and got the underneath of the train caught up in the overlocker on the sewing machine.
“I overlocked a hole in it. I’ve never done that again. You learn through your mistakes.”
Esme, who teaches at Central Saint Martins in London – the art school where she learned her trade – says she loves wearing dresses and likes to buy fabric from her pupils.
She said: “I like wearing dresses. They shouldn’t be too tight, frankly, because I’m a bit too old for that. And you won’t see me in an Amorphous dress any more.
“I really like fabrics which I buy from my final year students which they have printed.
“Then I make clothes out of them. It makes it personal.
“I’m drawn to bright colours, but I also like dark colours.
“As a kid, I used to like pink, surprisingly, though I did have a very nice Black Watch tartan dress that my mum bought me.
“I like linen a lot. I try to go to Greece every year and I make clothes to wear there. Linen is a really cool fabric.”
Esme, who has been impressed by Scots Sewing Bee contestant Brogan Sommerville, 26, says her favourite outfit is a jacket that was made by one of her former students.
She said: “I cut patterns for a designer called Ashish, who was one of my students.
“He has given me various jackets and they are really quite special.”
Esme reveals when lockdown separated her from her machine she was able to catch up on her sewing by hand.
She said: “Well, I don’t have a sewing machine at home and didn’t want to go into the studio in Hackney, so I did a lot of hand sewing.
“I altered various clothes, I made some masks, I made some cushion covers.” Behind The Seams by Esme Young is published by Blink Publishing, priced £18.99. Available now.