{"id":3067,"date":"2018-08-24T07:00:33","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T06:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insider.utelier.com\/?p=3067"},"modified":"2019-08-07T06:43:45","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T05:43:45","slug":"hand-and-lock-hand-embroidery-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fashioninsiders.co\/features\/meet-the-maker\/hand-and-lock-hand-embroidery-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Hand and Lock: The World’s Finest Hand Embroidery Since 1767"},"content":{"rendered":"
Welcome to Hand & Lock hand embroidery London HQ.<\/span><\/p>\n Established in<\/span> 1767 by a young lacemaker refugee from France \u2013 M.Hand, who came to England to avoid persecution. He started by manufacturing lace and selling it to military tailors. To help the business survive, he started to also do goldwork and hand embroidery of\u00a0<\/span>military badges and uniform accoutrements<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n To this day Hand and Lock are one of the few, if not the only, business to whom military, Royal diplomatic officials rely upon for uniform decoration. <\/span><\/p>\n In 2001 the M.Hand company merged with a fashion couture hand embroidery house S.Lock and was renamed to Hand & Lock. The two companies had a long history of working together, so a merger was inevitable.<\/span><\/p>\n In 2017 the company celebrated 250 years since it was founded. They celebrated with a series of conferences and exhibitions organised around the world. <\/span><\/p>\n The 13 plus strong team now proudly continues the tradition of fine embroidery into the years to come.<\/span><\/p>\n To learn more about the business and the wonderful world of hand embroidery, Team Fashion Insiders visited the Hand and Lock’s HQ and met with the Head Designer \u2013 Scott Gordon Heron and Jess Pile \u2013 the Production Director.<\/span><\/p>\n Scott:<\/strong> I hear a lot of stories of how people got taught to embroider from their grandparents. I was never one of those kids. I was always very creative and loved to draw, and originally got a diploma in design. But, I wanted to push my studies a little bit further and went on to study fashion and textiles. I was always drawing ideas and illustrations but after a while, it got to be a bit samey and I wanted to get a bit more hands on. A teacher encouraged me to explore other techniques and play with surface decoration. I started to experiment a little bit with stitching. My teachers all of a sudden saw something and started to encourage me to go more into embroidery, even though I had never stitched more than a button in the past. <\/span><\/p>\n I was very lucky that one of my tutors really liked what I was doing and kind of took me under her wing. She took a group of us on a trip to Premier Vision in Paris. It was at that same time that I saw this amazing exhibition showing at the time about Haute Couture<\/a> and Christian Lacroix in the 1980s. <\/span><\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t believe what I was seeing and realised that this is what I wanted to do. I fell in love with it. <\/span><\/p>\n I subsequently did some research on who makes embroidery and found out that Hand & Lock offer placements. I applied and was very, very lucky not only to gain a placement but to also be offered a job here just before I graduated. <\/span><\/p>\n So I really have worked my way here from design assistant to head of design over the years. <\/span><\/p>\n Jess:<\/strong> I was more practical making compared to Scott. I went to university to study drama and theatrical costume<\/a>. From there I ended up working in a few theatres. Then at one point, as I was working on a project to make a replica of a Dior dress, I became very interested in embroidery. I came here to do an internship and loved it. At the end of the internship, they offered me to stay on.<\/span><\/p>\nHow did you get your start in embroidery? The UK is not known to be particularly strong in embroidery, so how did you learn about it and find your way here?<\/span><\/h3>\n