Bespoke Clothes and Bridal Wear Designed and Made by CLARE PERKINS

CLARE Perkins from her studio Silk Rose in Lavenham creates the dresses of dreams – Couture wedding dresses. Each one is handmade using exquisite silks and laces and designed specifically for the individual bride. “I believe each bride deserves the wedding dress of her dreams for her very special day, and the very best she can afford, whatever her budget.” After leaving London Fashion College in the early 1970’s she was invited to join the legendary couturier Norman Hartnell, makers of the Queen’s Coronation Dress. There she worked on dresses for not only Her Majesty the Queen but also the Queen Mother and Princes Margaret too. “I helped to make the Queen's clothes for her Silver Jubilee when I was working at Norman Hartnell Ltd. I even found a photograph in the paper the other day of her wearing one and I immediately thought, I worked on that!” Clare also worked on a very grand dress also for Her Majesty in 1975 for the State Opening of Parliament which the Queen also wore that same year during her tour of Australia. “My job was to join all the dress seams and then sew on all the embellishment, such as sequins and crystals, following the design so that all the gaps were filled over the seams.” This as you might imagine took her hours and hours as it had to be exactly in line with what had been done in the embroidery room. However, working in such a stressful environment for a young seamstress wasn’t without its complications. “That dress has my blood on it! “I pricked my finger whilst working on the hem and I was in such a panic as you might imagine.” “Such an important dress for Her Majesty having the dressmaker’s blood on it!” Thankfully for Clare help was at hand. “Gladys who was my mentor calmed me down saying it happened to all the best dressmakers.” “She told me to chew a length of white cotton and then rub it onto the fabric.” This worked wonders and soon the blood disappeared thank goodness. “I still felt terrible leaving my spit on a Royal Dress!”

Clare now runs her own business, Silk Rose, from her home near Lavenham, and has wonderful memories of the days when royal hemming was more than just a special technique for use on delicate fabric. She was born to be a dressmaker. “I was one of those little girls who was always making dresses for their dolls from rose petals.” she recalls. She doesn’t come from a tradition of family dressmakers, her mother Angela, who writes under the name of Clough, is an historian and genealogist ,and her father, Richard, was an architect and a war hero. “He flew Mitchells and was awarded an Immediate DSO ” Educated at a private all-girls school academia was not a strong point. “The headmistress used to regularly write to my parents saying ‘Clare could do better if only she would stop drawing, sewing and playing music!’ Prophetically, her father told the headmistress that one day she would regret saying that because Clare would be making clothes for the Queen. After leaving school at 16 Clare had a brief flirtation with the idea of becoming an occupational therapist. However she eventually took the advice of her former school careers advisor and applied to the London School of Fashion and Technology. Already with an impressive portfolio, she was accepted before her exam results were known. From 1969 – 1972 she embraced London and its fashion scene. Then she heard about working for Norman Hartnell, British Fashion designer with a Royal Warrant as dressmaker to the Queen. “You can’t apply to work there you have to be asked so it was a real honour.” Clare had to forget everything she had learnt at The College, and start again from the very bottom rung, literally picking up pins from the floor for the first few weeks. This taught her the discipline needed when making couture clothes that she still works to. However she learnt the painstaking hand sewing techniques of couture that still stand true. “Only seams could be joined by treadle machine; everything else was done by hand.” It was here she gained a passion for working with silk and chiffon. “The Queen Mother loved chiffon and so did Barbara Cartland.” “Everything Barbara had made was cerise pink, and everything the Queen mother wore she had a replicate made.”