New Printed Velvet Cushions With Cashmere Reverse By Le Noeud Papillon

 The pandemic has been for us a very interesting year. I loathe the word 'pivot' and I have done my best to avoid using the 'soup du jour' terminology that spreads just like a virus each year. Last year the world was 'disrupting' and 'reaching out' . It's global vom - and unfortunately we are all supposed to eat it.

But the pandemic did present a challenge. If nobody is getting married this year and if our surgeons are not wearing bow ties to the office - what then is my relevance to society? Things so often wax and wane in fashion but I always relied on the bow tie not fading. Silk neckwear had survived 400 years, why should it suddenly be done away with ? Wait it out, they'll be back... But what if they don't come back? And then you start to sweat at night wondering if everything you had set about doing over the past twelve years was meaningless. 

That's when you really have to get creative. In March a lady who ordinarily spent her time in casinos playing black jack was found shut out of her favourite pass time and was upsetting her husband because she was getting cabin fever sitting at home. Through a common friend an introduction was made to me asking if I would be interested in getting her to do some work in sewing, as she had run a small fashion company twenty five years ago. I said ok, but at the time I wasn't sure if I would have anything for her to do at all - we were suffering at the time and concentrating solely on face masks. 

There was one product I'd always wanted to do but never had enough silk to commit and nor did any of my other sewers (I feel seamstress is a word that might be needing an overhaul since males who sew don't fall under that umbrella - we need a unisex word that adequately conveys people who sew for a living with either machines or their hands) want to take on that work. 

The first cushions we made were below par. I wouldn't write them off, they just didn't have the benefit of experience and the number of iterations it takes to get a product right, the same which could be said of our first self-tying bow ties. I think in life everything is a function of the refinement of process - which is why I have always loved the Japanese and especially their woodblock artisans.

So as we went along we experimented with materials, with piping, with linings, with zippers and more. What an enjoyable experience it has been to see it come to fruition. The first time I sold one I rang my seamstress and she was in a boutique in Sydney's Double Bay and she started crying. She went home and told her husband, I think he started crying too - now that he knew she was off his back and had something to put her hands to! And that was it - we didn't look back. 

We have now added to our product range scrunchies, new kerchiefs, cushions, pillow cases and soon we will have poker table covers. This year we have also added into the website cashmere scarves, cashmere jumpers and hoodies, umbrellas, shoe horns, bomber jackets, dressing robes and more. But the push from now one, I hope, is that aside from our core business, self-tying bow ties, we will push for products that have a practical application in people's lives, ones that they can use everyday, like our silk eye shades, or as yesterday I was negotiating, lovely French linen sheets embroidered with our customers details.

And all of this I write because I want to tell you about the product below, the first of the new printed velvet cushions featuring a cheetah in the jungle with a bird perched on a branch which we then reversed with Scottish cashmere to make a dual tone on the reverse. It is in line with what we do, the same way we reverse silks in our reverso model bow ties. It is made of exquisite fabrics, made by hand as I pick up my left handed gingher rotary cutter and set a clear pattern over the cushion so that we find the exact spot required, and then once cut it goes straight to my seamstress (sewer) who then finishes it with a lining that is often used in ties and jackets which gives it a very robust body. For the inner we use a goose down that we can source locally and it gives it such a plush Old World feel about it.

We now have a comprehensive range of products we can offer you and unlike most other companies in the world, we can cut and make it for you in 24 hours (save the bomber jackets) and ship it to you anywhere in the world 4 days later. That's a good reason to engage me if you want something different, something for yourself, something that will stand the test of time. Whatsapp +61413140994 .