#Flat sketch fashion design full#
#Flat sketch fashion design tv#

Young writes and speaks warmly about both of her parents, and all of her four siblings, but admits that her relationship with her glamorous, independent, practical joke-loving mother was not always easy. вЂњThey told my Dad: вЂSheвЂ™s a little bit thick.вЂ™ He went: вЂNo sheвЂ™s not! SheвЂ™s dreamy.вЂ™вЂќ YouвЂ™re being creative, youвЂ™re feeling the fabric, youвЂ™re making decisions.вЂќ But she now realises that her retreat into a creative mental space was at least in part due to the isolating effects of her deafness. As a small child she was often painting, drawing and crafting in a world of her own, which she describes as вЂњa very beautiful place to beвЂќ. This was the same year that she learned to read, and had partial deafness diagnosed (she had a severe case of вЂњglue earвЂќ, and had her tonsils and adenoids removed to rectify it). Young made her first item of clothing, a gathered skirt, aged seven.

#Flat sketch fashion design tv#

ThatвЂ™s before we get to the Sewing Bee years, which have made Young вЂ“ with her severe grey bob, diminutive stature and cheeky sense of humour вЂ“ a familiar face on TV screens. It takes in her creative childhood, her time as a fashion designer with Swanky Modes, and her decades of work as a costume designer, making items including RenГ©e ZellwegerвЂ™s memorably cringe-inducing bunny outfit in Bridget Jones: вЂњShe kept telling me to make it tighter (she wanted to look bigger than she was for the character) and by the end, she couldnвЂ™t sit down in it.вЂќ ThereвЂ™s a long list of celebrity cameos, as Young crosses paths with Madness, the fashion photographer Helmut Newton, the Sex Pistols, Vivienne Westwood, Grace Jones, David Bowie and Jarvis Cocker. We are here to discuss Behind the Seams, her thrillingly colourful memoir. She is wearing a blue and navy camo-esque floral print dress that she picked up in Gap about a decade ago she has lengthened it and paired it with a camouflage jacket she found in a military surplus shop. Though the sun is shining, it has recently rained вЂ“ we have perched on the only two dry benches we could find, beneath a tree that drops large white blossoms on our heads as we chat. вЂњEven men in suits.вЂќ We meet in mid-May in a small park in the City of London, round the corner from the Peabody Estate where Young has lived for more than 40 years. вЂњEveryone expresses who they are by what they wear,вЂќ Young, 73, tells me. At school, Young and her friends would rebel against their uniforms by letting the hems of their skirts fall down, leaving their ties undone and wearing one sock down and one sock up. Her mother quickly put a lock on her wardrobe.

#Flat sketch fashion design full#

As a child growing up in Bedfordshire she looked up to her mother вЂ“ a вЂњfree spiritвЂќ who looked вЂњfabulous in anythingвЂќ вЂ“ and her wardrobe full of Jaeger dresses as a teenager she was rifling through the wardrobe, looking for vintage pieces to steal, cut up and repurpose into new items вЂ“ a challenge she now sets for contestants on the Sewing Bee. Long before she was a judge on the Great British Sewing Bee, and long before she was part of the punk design collective Swanky Modes, Esme Young was interested in clothes.