What was once such a rarefied thing to see in Sydney, a roll stitched pocket square, is now common place. Every menswear and branded boutique in Sydney now offers them but there is a striking difference between some of the brands who choose to use machine hemmed chained stitching and those that use hand-roll stitching. As a general rule the hand roll stitched variety are favoured by those brands that genuinely design and print their own silks, companies such as Hermes are one such an example, and it is for this reason that they command anywhere between $190 and $275.00 per pocket square and it is my belief that for this quality and attention to detail you should pay this price.
If you are paying less than $90.00 for a pocket square you should check both the quality of the print (it's most likely digital and you can tell this by flipping the square over) and/or it's machine hemmed. Machine hemmed is easy to spot because the stitching technique is quite different and looks more like a chain stitch than a roll stitch. The roll stitch is very time consuming and it takes one seamstress between 20 and 40 minutes to complete one 42 x 42cm square depending on the silk quality. Woven jacquard silks are usually more fiddly and require more time. Rumour has it that in Italy the nuns used to do this work because they were the only ones with enough free time on their hands. The Italian workrooms then used to make a donation to the church.
Below you will find three new printed silk twill squares from Le Noeud Papillon - they are printed in England in the traditional screen printing techniques you would normally associate with prestigious silk fashion houses and then once the silk arrives in Sydney they are hand-roll stitched using silk thread. There is a difference so perhaps try ours and you can make your own decision. Shop now: www.lenoeudpapillon.com
No comments:
Post a Comment