My mother was kept very busy with her sewing; sometimes she would have another woman helping her.
My father was a tailor, my mother a machinist.
I do things like hem a pair of pants, I do my own tailoring but I wouldn't attempt a jacket.
Very few designers today design - it's very important to be able to do your own sketch on paper and then explain [your vision] to the fabric cutters. Instead, lots of designers drape - it's the new way.
My mother was very fashion-oriented, and she started a little children's wear business that became large in this little town. She used to be able to look at a picture of an outfit and just start cutting the fabric right there.
I like to work a lot with wood. I make furniture that falls apart. I also sew.
So, after school, I needed to learn a trade and started to work as a tailor.
When I see a shoe, I deconstruct it in my head. It comes from spending childhood summers around my grandad's denim factory in Bury, watching the machinists turn fabric into clothes.
I'm good at pants. They are just two big sleeves sewn together.
I drape a lot. I cut. I have to touch. For me, it's almost impossible to start without that.
My mom and grandma have made clothes their whole life. My grandma had her own factory.
We can also cut by heat - heat punch. And we also can cut by cold - extreme cold. When you cut with heat, it makes a mark. With cold, no mark. It depends on the fabric.
I can't cut out a piece of cloth and make a lovely dress, but I can mend tears in shirts and sew on buttons.
The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.
