Hot for Harris

Hello everyone, it's Bernie here! So yesterday we were lucky enough to be mentioned in an article by uber fashion editor Hilary Alexander discussing the popularity of Harris Tweed and the new fashion brands that have jumped on board with the heritage fabric. Well, we are not boasting, but here at SB we have been using the gorgeous handwoven material for over 10 years! And on top of that we have also been officially endorsed by The Harris Tweed Authority, an honour for a brand that prides itself on flying the flag for British design.

So as this is obviously a key trend to AW11, I thought I would give you a little sneak peek of the Sara Berman Harris Tweed coats before they go online at www.saraberman.com next week.

This season we have mixed 60s androgyny with feminine country chic. Firstly we have the Marley coat, a crombie shape perfect for this winter's Mod twist and girls as boys trend. However, with the bow detail adoring the pockets, Sara has made sure there is a touch of sweetness about the coat (obviously not too much though!)

The Yvette Smoking jacket carries on with the teddy girl trend, sharp cuts with luxe punk detailing, the velvet collar is pure luxury, already a big hit with the press, I have only seen our sample briefly in the last few months!

Moving onto a more traditional and feminine shape, the Vivienne Trench is a favourite at SB and has been a huge success in previous seasons. The large gold buttons on the double breast and the thick belt scream sixties elegance, just imagine teamed with classic Jackie O sunglasses and a smart silk dress.

Last but of course not least, we have the Dolly Coat. Simple with discreet detailing, an oversized open collar, slanted pockets and a detachable multicoloured brooch.

So there you go, our Harris Tweed beauties for this season! Now off to contemplate a long cold winter whilst walking through sunny London, fashion is so confusing!

Summer Winter Love

Hello, Bernie here! It has been a while since I’ve posted so thought I would update you all on the brilliance of AW11. Last time I had just finished the look books and after a few changes and drafts we all decided on the best layout and got them back to the office in a couple of days, very exciting stuff and they look gorgeous! 

Once they arrived we very quickly sent them out again – envelopes, press release and address stickers galore. Then the waiting game, trying to work out when they would arrive with the magazines and who would be starting the AW11 shoot call ins, it is very strange to be excited about Harris Tweed coats and leather gloves when its so sunny but that’s just the way the fashion year goes!

Anyway, everyone loved the look books, the AW11 shoots have started and our samples are all over the world being shot. With the tweeds, leathers, liberty dresses and variety of accessories whatever the shoot we have something to fit in! Of course SS11 is still going strong and has been so successful but it really is very pleasing when you have a whole collection of new beautiful things to work with.  We have some very nice features coming up in September and I will get them onto here for you all to see asap! 

The One Where I Talk To Sky News

I just wanted to share with you my latest endeavour of spreading the love of Harris Tweed. This time I am doing it outside of the confines of the Sara Berman site and this blog. I was approached by Russell Luckock of Sky News and, as I'm sure you can imagine, was more than happy to talk about my favourite winter fabric...

You can read the full article here

Now go forth and spread the love!

A Little Perspective

We are finally there. The panic has subsided and we are now firmly entrenched in the selling season and it has been going great guns! I think partly that is down to things looking up for the economy in general but also - may i say it - to the strength of the collection. As a designer there is always the natural inclination to be terribly critical but this season I can honestly put my hands up and say we have done a great job.

This is it - Autumn/Winter '10

I realised when looking back that I started this blog in the middle of the SS10 selling season which made me consider how much things have changed in that time for us as designers and the process we have followed this season. When you design a collection there is always pressure to do more. To make the collections bigger, to target other markets and fulfil every need as expressed by your buyers. This is natural and as a business person of course the instinct is to grow. However we found ourselves in a situation where our brand had grown so extensive in its product offer that we were over burdened by these huge collections and we finding less and less time to enjoy the process of design. I guess that is always the problem when you have a creative and business person in the same body but it wasn’t working for us anymore.

The recession allowed us to take a step back and see how much the design process meant to us in a very puritanical way and how much we wanted to go back to our roots. I think that for the first time in the history of our business it wasn’t about growth but about enjoying what we have built. 

This is me on what was a good design day. Very happy!

The success of our bag business showed us how valuable it could be to focus in on our strengths and how much we enjoyed the detail of design. So for AW10 we decide to indulge ourselves and really concentrate on the things that we loved designing as opposed to trying to tick all the boxes. Please understand that this is a pretty brave move. For years our buyers have been coming to us to see two full collections (Sara Berman and Berman Black) per season – each one a comprehensive, fully merchandised offer. In cutting back and presenting a basically egotistical offer of our favourite parts of a collection we risked alienating those buyers. Thankfully it seems to have paid off. The buyers who have seen the collection so far have been ecstatic! That sounds like a crazy word to use but when you have women dancing around the showroom throwing the clothes on themselves and doubling their orders it looks like a pretty enthusiastic reaction!

This season our collection is all about British. Our knitwear is made in a factory that actually makes for the Royal Guards. We have sourced real Donegal yarn-which is the only yarn still spun in the UK and is of such a beautiful quality it makes you proud that we can still make yarn like this. Our Harris Tweed coats are not only made of a yarn spun in the weavers own homes, but the coats and jackets themselves are made in the best factories still operating in the UK. Our silk dresses are also made in the UK and the whole vibe of the collection is British through and through. Think Dodi Smith's ‘I capture The Castle’ meets George Macdonald Fraser’s ‘Flashman’ with a dash of rock and roll thrown in.

Amiee channeling rock 'n' roll

We have also done a collaboration with British artist Dan Baldwin and are using one of his incredible paintings as a print for dresses and the lining of a couple of our Harris Tweed coats. Imagine opening up your coat to show one of Dan’s amazing paintings! The wonderful thing about this is that I have been a fan of Dan’s work for years (you can actually see one of his paintings in our AW09 mood board) and we came together over many shared ideas and inspirations. Terribly pure, honestly non commercial and a wonderful example for us we can indulge our love of art with our commitment to design. We want our customers to buy from us knowing that they are not buying just another mass produced item of clothing but actually a piece which contains a little soul.

The whole process has been an indulgent pleasure from start to finish. The funny thing is that although the collection has ended up being much bigger than we intended, we realised that we have gone back to the roots of what Sara Berman is all about. We found the pictures of my graduate collection from St Martins and realised that it was all leather, knitwear and tweed! Just goes to show that you will always do best that which you love most.

I Am The Mess-Meister

With five days to go until we start showing the AW10 collection, I thought you might like a very brief update on where things are at in the SB studio.

Frankly things are a little stressful. We haven’t seen one single solitary Harris Tweed finished piece yet. Of the 25 Harris Tweed samples which we need to have ready in five days, we have not got one.

Only 18 of our 30 bags samples are here in the studio. Six are on their way to the wrong address in London thanks to DHL Italiana stupido. Four are on their way from India and may or may not clear customs before Christmas. The remaining two are, in theory, going to be here the day before yesterday. Great.

The studio is covered in tweed, threads, bits of pattern and little gold lions waiting to be sewn onto sweaters-which are everywhere.The place is a bombsite and in the middle of all of it Amiee decides we need a new table. It arrived unannounced at 9am and as it turns out she may have misjudged the size of our studio and now we have a table which is the size of the whole showroom. Please understand that this is not a Good Thing when that showroom needs to be filled with samples not table. Feast your eyes on the monstrous thing below:

My house is also in a state of total disarray as I continue my archiving process. There is nowhere in my life where I am not surrounded by a daft amount of mess. I am the mess-meister.

The Italian silk CAD for our Dan Baldwin collaboration arrived yesterday. Only a month late.  Now they have to print it, send it and we have to make up the dresses and coats -all in five days. FIVE DAYS!

And to top it all off, I left my Val lightning stripe hat in a taxi last night.

And people wonder why designers are highly strung, emotionally fragile and teetering on the brink of a severe personality disorder.

The Paradox Of Luxury

Well nothing like the harsh truth to spur a girl on… Having been told in no uncertain terms that my last blog on Harris Tweed was bordering on the obsessive and frankly a bit dull I am back to my witty form and hope to regale you with tales of fun and frolics from The Studio.

But before I do I am anxious to fight my corner on the Harris Tweed front. Not that I want to make a whole Thing about it, because I don’t… But actually I do because I think the point is being missed. It isn’t just about tweed, it is about the Value and Virtue of Luxury. I can understand that not everyone’s idea of fun is a woolly factory in the Outer Hebrides. But I certainly can’t make any excuses for the fact that I think cloth woven by hand in the homes of crafts people is the ultimate in luxury whilst others paradoxically prefer to define the virtue of luxury by measure of abundance. I am bemused by people who think that the luxury status of a product is defined by the amount of money something costs as opposed to its rarity or emotional value. I find it incredible that we have reached a time where in some cases the cost of something can be inversely proportionate to the amount of time spent in its creation. I understand that one could justify expense as a definition of luxury by arguing that the more something costs the harder it is to afford it and thereby creates a scarcity value in so much as less and less people have the disposable income to be able to own it. However to my mind this is a shame because it creates a univalent relationship between money and value which disregards the properties of time and emotion as defining factors. For me craft will always be the ultimate in luxury because someone somewhere has spent time working with their hands, dreaming their dreams and thinking their thoughts whilst working on that piece, product or item whatever it might be. To own that item is to own a little of that persons skill, a smidgen of their time and a fragment of their dreams. There can be no higher value than that.

This probably all sounds a like a rant and slightly left of field but luxury has been on my mind... Last weekend Amiee, Helene and I hit the streets of Florence on our annual girl's trip. Every year at the same time we spend 3 days in this beautiful Italian city. We stay at the super chic J K Place where we share a room and giggle like teenagers. We eat at fabulous little restaurants (one is so little they seat only 16 and serve the finest wines with delectable cheeses and salamis) and get happy on red wine whilst propping up the bar at the wonderful Ringo’s at lunchtime (the best cheesecake in the world. Bar none). And we spend a serious amount of time enjoying the shops, the streets and the markets. Everything is a pleasure to look at and engage with because the Italians really understand beauty and craft. They also understand time. Nothing happens in a hurry, everything is exercised carefully from the hand crafted leather bag to the care taken over the preparation of a simple salad. It is this attitude to life, that anything worth having is worth waiting for that makes Italy the centre of luxury as time is the greatest luxury of all.

Amiee The Luxury Gimp!

On a lighter note, last night we had Team Berman Xmas shindig. We had a big round table at our old favourite San Lorenzo. Totally traditional and delightfully delicious. We had a blast. It was emotional. But most of all I want to take this opportunity to raise our glasses once again to our wonderful team. It has been a roller coaster of a year and you guys have been the bomb. Thank you for everything - your hard work, your integrity, your confidence, your power and your laughter. You make everyday possible and everyday a pleasure. Big up Team Berman.
x

Team Berman


Millie - Guest Of Honour

It’s a Tweed thing

Most readers of my ramblings will be aware that I have an obsession with Harris Tweed and that we have recently been endorsed by Harris Tweed Hebrides and are working in collaboration with them. So last week I took a plane, and then another plane and then a drive all the way to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides to visit the only existing mill producing Harris Tweed.

The purpose of my trip was for me to see the tweed designs that we are working on for AW10, check the colours and finalise the last of the development. I also wanted to take the chance to spend some time in the mill. I have a real attraction to the processes side of design as I believe that good design comes from understanding the boundaries and I always feel a better understanding of what can be done if I can see it for my self. I love the smells and noise of industry, handling the raw materials before they are transformed and the energy of true craft. This may sound dramatic but the reason we are so committed to the use of Harris Tweed is because we believe that craft is luxury and Harris Tweed epitomises this. Let me explain a little about this iconic cloth and why we place so much value on it.

Harris Tweed is probably the most famous textile in the world. It is the only cloth that is protected by an act of parliament and it can only be produced on the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The Harris Tweed Act 1993 states that Harris Tweed must be hand woven by the islanders at their own homes from pure virgin wool, spun, dyed, and finished on the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Only cloth that fully conforms to this definition is entitled to bear the world famous “ORB” trademark which was granted to the islanders in 1910.

The origins of the cloth are centuries old. It was first made by the inhabitants of the isles from the wool from their own sheep and made into practical garments to protect them from the harsh element of the Outer Hebrides. All processes were done by hand with each and every member of the household having their particular role to play.The wool would first have to be washed and then dyed, using natural materials such as the crotal, scraped off the rocks on the shore. Various plant materials were also used and the dyes were set using urine which would be collected and stored for this purpose.

The dyed wool was then carded by hand, using two flat combs. The spinning was done on a wooden spinning wheel and the yarn was then warped in preparation for weaving. The weaving was done on a wooden loom which was used for many years until the arrival of the Hattersley domestic handloom in the 1920s. The woven cloth was then washed and it was during this process that the famous "waulking" of the cloth took place. Several people, almost always women, would work the wet cloth back and forward across a table, usually accompanied by Gaelic song allowing a whole genre of music to develop around this activity. After drying, the cloth was ready for use or sale.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Isle of Harris was owned by the Earl of Dunmore and it was his wife, lady Dunmore, who first saw the potential of selling this fabric, produced by her tenants, to her aquaintances in London. Thus Harris Tweed was first marketed and, as the reputation of the fabric grew. The success of the fabric also led to imitations and it became necessary to seek protection for the genuine article. This led to the formation of the Harris Tweed Association in 1909 and the granting of the trademark in 1910. The Association became the Harris Tweed Authority with the Act of 1993.

(Guess what colour we're channeling for AW10!)

Harris Tweed is the only handwoven fabric produced in commercial quantities. The yarn production process uses specially blended yarns produced to secret recipes and then warped up to exclusive designs before being sent to weaver's homes to be handwoven by weavers using skills handed down from generation to generation. The cloth is then returned to the mill to be finished in a new finishing plant to a very high standard. The final process is examination by the independent Harris Tweed Authority, before application of the famous "ORB" trademark which is ironed on to the fabric as the ultimate seal of approval.

See below for photos of me at Harris Tweed Hebrides! I am actually weaving our very own Sara Berman Harris Tweeds! It was a great privilege to spend time at the Harris Tweed Hebrides mill and I would like to thank all the team for making me feel so welcome and for all their hard work and enthusiasm. It was a real highlight for me.

Harris Tweed Love

This week has been exactly what I love about my job. Fashion week over and my mind is beginning to trip over the little nuggets of inspiration which will eventually grow into the new AW10 collection. This stage is the Thursday of design… The weekend is looming but not yet close enough to touch. Full of promise with the end nowhere in sight. We are starting to select all our yarns and fabrics and on that note I want to tell you about some rather wonderful news…

As I am sure you know we are more than a little obsessed with Harris Tweed… 11 pieces made from it in AW09 should give a fair clue. For those stylistas who have been living under a rock for the past 100 years this incredible cloth is hand dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides - which I think is the coolest thing ever. And from the beginning of Sara Berman I have been utterly enthralled by the whole process and we have had a great time being as creative as we like developing our own tweeds. It has become the mainstay of our collection and gets us really excited every season… (apparently there is a name for people who get excited about things like this - but that’s not for now)… Well the news is that yesterday Harris Tweed Hebrides have recognized this passion and officially endorsed Sara Berman! We are ridiculously excited about this and in November we will be off to the Outer Hebrides (!!!) to work on our collaboration and see our yarns being spun.

However excitement aside, we have a problem...what does a girl wear in the Outer Hebrides? Will the islanders of Stornoway appreciate my Opening Ceremony ankle boots? Will my ivory Cecilia bag need to be scotch-guarded against the elements? And most importantly which Harris Tweed coat do I take?

In The Press

We've had some great coverage for the Autumn/Winter '09 collection so far - here are my favourites:

Nana Lightning Stripe Sweater

'10 Best: Fabulous Fuchsia', Glamour, October

Marlow Slouch Satchel
'Show And Tell', Cosmopolitan.co.uk, September

Limited Edition Gold Lou Hand Clutch

'Beautiful Bags To Buy NOW', Cosmopolitan.co.uk, September

Anna Bow Front Jacket - Harris Tweed

Easy Living, September

Anna Bow Front Jacket - Harris Tweed Check

Glamour, August