Young at heart
The Great British Sewing Bee’s Esme Young talks to HANNAH STEPHENSON about sewing for the stars and partying with pop idols
SHE’S best known as the pint-sized judge of The Great British Sewing Bee, opposite her loftier pal Patrick Grant – but together their chemistry has proved a hit with viewers.
Esme Young, 73, may seem a slightly stern figure when she picks faults in contestants’ work, but her memoir Behind The Seams reveals a colourful history – from partying with the likes of David Bowie and the Sex Pistols, to creating the bunny outfit worn by Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones’s Diary.
After an illustrious career in the fashion industry, from launching Swanky Modes, a cool designer collective in Camden Town in the Seventies, to designing costumes for film stars including Leonardo DiCaprio and Grace Jones, Esme came to TV late in life. But she loves being part of The Great British Sewing Bee, which sees amateur sewers compete to become Britain’s best seamster.
“Sewing Bee is such a positive programme,” she enthuses.
“Nobody who stops me in the street because they recognise me has ever been negative. And it’s not that I am that recognised.”
Esme says she has no problem being in front of the camera, and chuckles recalling how during the first show, she commented that a garment being displayed by a model ‘fits really well under her a**e’, which the producers called a ‘spitting out your tea moment’.
Her colourful language is matched by her colourful life, from making her first piece of clothing – a gathered skirt – aged seven, to living in London squats with pals in the Seventies, partying with pop stars and punks, and designing clothes for the rich and famous.
“The only celeb I’ve ever felt starstruck about – and I think it’s to do with my age – is Dustin Hoffman. Initially I was slightly speechless, but I soon got over it,” she recalls.
They met at a costume fitting for the 2008 film Last Chance Harvey and she was then invited to the wrap party, where she turned up, hair teased into a beehive.
“The two of us were a frenzy of music and energy and I think we must have cleared the dance floor with our crazy moves. My beehive was not the same after that experience,” she writes.
Away from the spotlight, the fashion designer and teacher, whose mother Patricia adored clothes, was brought up in a sewing environment at a convent boarding school run by nuns.
“We were taught cross stitch, darning and mending, knitting and crocheting. Sewing was the way of the world. Girls were taught sewing at school. It was just something that was done, but it isn’t nowadays.
“It’s a shame, because particularly nowadays in this age of computers, you are being creative with something you can actually touch and feel. It’s really good for your mental health. You become part of a little community of people who sew.”
The daughter of an RAF pilot and a clothes-loving mother, as a young girl she was influenced by Biba, Mary Quant and Ossie Clark, but she preferred to adapt and transform secondhand clothing into something unique.
She was surely ahead of her time, but feels the issue of sustainable fashion is complicated.
“Everything has a knock-on effect. For instance, I know this website where you can hire clothes so you are not buying them and you send them back. But they’ve got to be sent to you, you’ve got to send them back, and they’ve got to be dry cleaned. So, it’s really difficult,” says Esme.
“They were saying bamboo was sustainable, but once you start having to produce a lot, it is no longer sustainable. I just think the issue is complicated. People shouldn’t be buying so much and manufacturers shouldn’t be making so much.”
In her early 20s, Esme was one of the founders of Swanky Modes, a collective run by four women.
It soon became cool and celebrities would travel great distances to visit the shop – and party on the floor above it. Their clothing appeared in Vogue and was photographed by edgy snappers of the day, including David Bailey and Helmut Newton.
“What was very unusual about Swanky Modes was that it had been set up by four women. There were no men. Obviously there were boyfriends and husbands but in the business it was women. That was really unusual and we probably just got the zeitgeist.”
They welcomed singer Toyah Willcox, rock singer Bette Bright (who is married to Suggs of Madness) and designer Jasper Conran through their doors, among others.
“At that time in London it was a real creative community on all sorts of levels that we were all part of – artists, musicians, designers.”
For some time she shared a squat in Maida Vale, west London, with other creatives. “There was a real community. Most of the squatting that was done was in council places, not private houses.”
She moved a few times during her squatting years, and even now still rents a flat with the Peabody estate housing association, which she first moved to in 1983. She also has a beach hut in Kent, which she goes to as often as she can for a break.
Of those early years, she reflects:
“We were really lucky. Now, for young people, doing something in London is impossible unless you are really rich. I squatted, we opened a shop but the rent wasn’t huge. Kids can’t do that any more and it’s not because they are not creative.”
Esme branched out into costume design, designing a cheesecloth shirt for Leonardo DiCaprio for the film The Beach, along with swimwear for Tilda Swinton, and the famous Bridget Jones bunny outfit.
“Renée wanted the bunny outfit to be tighter because her character wasn’t skinny. She really wanted a cleavage, so the costume pushed her breasts up. She could hardly sit down in it because it was so tight.”
While she had a few relationships – and a reputation for partying – in those early years, Esme has never settled down and remains tightlipped about her private life.
Fellow designers, friends and family went on to have spouses and children, but Esme never did.
“I’ve never felt broody. I mean I like children and in a way their children were my children too. I never felt an urge to get married.”
A self-confessed workaholic with no thoughts of retirement, her career is still keeping her busy.
A new series of Sewing Bee has bugun, she keeps in touch with former host Joe Lycett and gets on well with new presenter Sara Pascoe. And the chemistry between herself and fellow judge Patrick remains.
“We have a little room and I’m on the sewing machine playing my music while he’s doing work. I’m normally making something when we are filming that I end up wearing.”
Esme also still teaches at Central Saint Martins, the art school where she learned her trade.
“The whole philosophy there is to go with the students and their creativity. That’s really important. We are not telling them, ‘ You’ve got to do this’. It’s about what they want to do.
“I’m still learning,” she adds. “With teaching, you learn from students. We don’t say, ‘you have to do it like this’. We are willing to go outside our comfort zone.”
She could hardly sit down in it because it was so tight