The Making of a Resourceful Gilet

So the idea to cover the body with slices of nature evolved slowly from Jools imagination, and came about into reality via a series of unplanned encounters at our tennis club to start with...

Then a collaboration and meeting of minds developed gradually through shaping some tops, and in 2013 sketches of the gilet, the top and final layer of the SueMe range started appearing.
Two other jacket layers were also engineered to fit under the gilet and allow movement as well style when off the mountain dirt tracks...

By Christmas 2013 all wool outer jacket layers were in place, Jools concept of the Russian doll was coming to life.
Then the journey to source the materials in small quantities started... and lasted till 2015

We identified wool from a manufacturer I had worked with before, we discovered technical sportswear recycled fleece from research within Jools sportswear contacts, and finally we ordered sample lengths to create the range, after sampling first protos with industry offcuts and swatchcards.

Colour scheme based on a nature story and city story developed, mainly from the Scottish hills and weaving villages, the city mainly London with all its green spots to enjoy.

The industry swatch cards were rescued from landfill in 2008 when the local London clothing manufacturing was out priced by bigger volume productions abroad. This triggered the desire to start a circular economy Creative Studio 4 offering creative design sessions to youths who struggled with schooling as a way to grow confidence and get back into education: they came along to pick up fabrics from closing down companies, and the surplus was donated to local community groups in Haringey.

It was quite Efficient to continue circulating and upcycling resources to be repurposed for the good of nature via SueMe concept. A rolling micro economy which, when the studio closed in 2017, was moved to SueMe creative space for life to continue merging into something new and different.

In 2018 Jools picked up where we left off when I went travelling to Hanoi to tutor pattern cutting and design, and due to specific making requirements and choosing new lining from reporposed sources, we slowly cut the gilets to order: the wool lengths we used were Echoic factory offcuts so we needed time to match the checks and this required to be done by hand in an artisanal manner, one by one.

And so they were... created, for several generations to wear... with a special serie number for each of them...

The shapes were altered by draping and creating lines straight on the person for better fit
The sketches evolved and we finally came back to the two pocket denim cross style with a twist softening the lines and updating the collar.

The whole creative process of making the gilets was slow and progressive testing shapes in various fabrics including fleece in order to create a happy marriage between cloth otherwise not mixed together for a hybrid versatile piece which can travel from day to night, as Tiff mentioned when shaping the next page of the gilet story with the UAL Masters interdisciplinary students leading the Collaborative Unit where their creative input help companies  forge a new way forward.

From country wedding to casual city night out...a versatile outer skin piece to act as a visible signature for the brand values... to become known. Here we are in 2020... evolving with the resourceful gilet...