Designing Our First Collection

In this post, we’re looking back to over a year ago when we were gearing up to Launch Homer + Howells.

Our first patterns Cissy and Jenny were released just before Christmas 2019, after almost a year of preparation and planning.

It has been a bit of a journey. Within months of each other we left our industry jobs in London and moved back to the West coast of Scotland with our young families. The fashion world in Scotland is very different to London but we knew we still had a lot to offer and we were craving a new project. When I suggested that we launch a home sewing brand, Susan jumped at the chance. We’d talked about working together and this seemed the perfect way to utilise our skills and still be creative. We were excited about some positive changes happening in the fashion world and wanted to find a way to bridge the gap between ready-to-wear and home sewing.

Designing the Collection

When we were designing our first collection, we worked from a mash-up of influences: rough sketches, magazine tears and street style pics. We took inspiration from fashion designers; streetwear looks and very often from our own wardrobes.

Although we both have our own style, we share a love for everyday dressing, real clothes that feel modern and easy. We both have timeless pieces in our wardrobes that we pull out again and again. We took this idea and used it as the inspiration for our first 6 patterns.

We visualised our first designs as a collection but it wasn’t our intention to create a capsule wardrobe. We wanted the patterns to be styles you wear with the clothes you already have in your wardrobe. We knew that we wanted to have traditionally tailored styles, with an androgynous feel, and with this as our vision, the first few patterns fell into place effortlessly

Some of the very first rough sketches, drawn on the back of a scribble pad.

Considered, Clean, Contemporary

Our ambition was that with a good pattern and the right instruction, anyone could sew our styles.

The paired back styling in the collection doesn’t necessarily mean simple sewing. In-fact keeping the designs clean often meant adding an extra row of understitching or introducing a new technique. Although, we usually found that the simplest techniques were the most effective.

For the most part, we were designing the patterns we felt you would want to sew and wear again and again. We weren’t considering sewing level or specific techniques at the early stages of development. We didn’t want skill level to significantly impact the designs. This meant that the collection unintentionally ended up with a range of techniques and finishing details. Some of these are super easy while others are more involved and complicated.

Fitting and Finishing

Once we had agreed on designs, Susan took the references to draft the initial pattern and toile. Then we moved on to fitting, refining and testing.

The excitement of a ‘first fit’ never goes away, no matter how many garments you work on. Getting to know the style, its proportions and construction is a really rewarding part of the process for us both. We would squeeze in fit sessions whenever we managed to meet up. We turned a few heads when we fitted a couple of toiles in a Glasgow hotel lobby.

When designing and drafting our patterns, we are fairly pragmatic about the design. We spend as much time stripping back details as we do adding them. We like pockets, big ones, clean details and functional styling without mock trims and details. Our signature boxy fit helps simplify the silhouettes of the patterns too, as there are no unnecessary seam lines or fuss.

At fits, we began to consider techniques and options for home sewing and finishing. Susan will usually have a technique in mind when drafting the pattern, so we will use this as a starting point to explore how it would work across different fabrics. A great example of this was the neckline on Innes. The squared-off neckline looks effortless, but the construction was a bit of a conundrum for us for a while.

The first samples were bias bound around the neckline and armhole – then we changed the technique to a full burrito method, which worked wonderfully; it gave a nice clean crisp finish at the corners. But this construction only worked on lightweight cloths. So we parked that method when Susan landed on the final technique for facing the style. In the end, we used both construction methods in our instructions so sewist could use whichever worked best for their fabric

In ready-to-wear we would develop styles for one specific fabric or a narrow fabric group only. The details of the pattern and construction would be tailored to each specific cloth. Whereas in home sewing patterns, we work to the best general solution for a wider range of clothes. This makes sure you can sew up your styles in a range of fabrics and get more out of your pattern. We love that we can make our styles work on multiple fabrics.

Photoshoot Planning

Planning and organising the photoshoot was exciting but a bit of jigsaw puzzle.

The first area we focussed on was colour and cloth. We used lots of bold block colours; steering away from pattern and print, that might have distracted from the details and lovely clean lines. We loved pairing the block colours with gorgeous textured cloths; slubby linens, soft cotton cords and drapey silks that sit back beautifully against the heavier drills and crepes.

The last fabric we delected was for the short Jenny skirt - we went with the silk boucle on the right, over the darker jaquard on the very left hand side

We had fabric types in mind well before we started sewing samples. We sourced lots of swatches, then narrowed down the colour palette before deciding a cloth or two for each pattern. We have had more emails and messages about the mustard cord and navy crepes we used for the Cissy dresses than all of the other fabrics combined.

In the run-up to the photoshoot we were both juggling day jobs and nursery picks so didn’t get the chance to catch up very often – we exchanged photos on WhatsApp of how we were each getting on with sample sewing and shoot planning. The buzz you feel when you see pictures of samples for the first time is so amazing, so our message chains were pretty much 50% high five and thumbs-up emojis to each other.

A whatsapp photo of Susans half made shiney Blair 👍

This needlecord looked fantastic amazing as soon as we sewd in the skirt pleats (even without shoulder seams) 🙌🏼

The Finished Collection

We couldn’t have been happier with how the images looked from the shoot – it was fantastic to see our styles worn by someone other than ourselves, and the images on screen looked fantastic. We were lucky to have an incredible team on the day who helped us pull everything together.

The navy Cissy dress was on of the first looks we shot

The final shot and one of our favourites

Falling back on our ready-to-wear ways, we love that we designed our first 6 patterns as a collection and shot them together. Working in this way we knew, borrowing what we enjoyed from the fashion world gave us a boost and the confidence to share our ideas and plans.

Designing and developing our first collection was such a rewarding experience, we appreciate we are lucky to have been able to do it at our own pace and to share the experience with each other.

Although we might not follow the same process for our next patterns, working this way worked for us and we’re so happy with what we’ve achieved in the last year.

Nicola McGrath14 December 2020