Wraith’s chef-d’oeuvre
An embroidery featuring the bird of prey is befittingly lavished on Wraith, Rolls-Royce’s powerful, dynamic Grand Tourer
The most detailed single embroidery to be featured in a Rolls-Royce motor car has been designed and created at the Home of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood, West Sussex. A Peregrine Falcon, the fastest bird in the world, famed for its power and speed, has become the subject of scrutiny for the marque’s talented Bespoke Design team. An embroidery featuring the bird of prey is befittingly lavished on Wraith, Rolls-Royce’s powerful, dynamic Grand Tourer.
This intricate needlework is the latest masterpiece from the Rolls-Royce Bespoke Collective. The bird of prey, designed by the Rolls-Royce Bespoke Design Team, is interpreted in photo-realistic complex detail amongs clouds on Wraith’s headlining. Consisting of nearly 250,000 stitches, the dramatic embroidery took a team of designers, craftspeople and engineers over one month to develop.
Josh Liles, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Bespoke embroidery specialist is highly-skilled at translating client’s request into embroidery. Before becoming an apprentice in the company’s leathershop, Liles was trained in mechanical engineering and 3D design and architecture. After nine years with the marque, he now leads a team of talented craftspeople, assuming responsibility for all of the brand’s needlework.
“The design required hours of observation of a Peregrine Falcon — we needed to understand the musculature, the movement, the shading of the feathers. We wanted the bird to adopt an alert and predatory stance. We created multiple iterations of the embroidery — the direction, length and spacing of the stitch can have a great impact on the final image. We purposefully shaped the beak and angled the eye to create a sense of aggression,” Liles shared.
He continued, “The falcon embroidery became a labor of love. Technically, it is exceptionally difficult to embroider this density of stitches onto leather. Embroidery puts stress and tension on leather causing a physical wave in the material, which naturally, is unacceptable in a Rolls-Royce.”