There’s Something About The Way You Feel

I love textiles. I luuuuuuuuuve textiles way more than I love jewellery. When I put on beautiful cloth every morning I feel empowered. I am not taking about highly decorative cloth either. I am talking about quality cloth. Quality is empowering because it serves by looking good, feeling good, adapting to the climate, growing old with grace and basically taking care of itself along the way.

I don’t remember the author (sorry) but do remember from my academic days reading a quote about one of the first things humans will come into contact with when we enter this world besides other human hands, is textiles. That explains why the presence of decent cloth in life is as important as good food.

Were you a child or, do you know a kid with a textiles crush on a toy or blanket? One of my x-boyfriends used to have a silky rating that he and his brother applied by touch to all his mother’s clothes.

More than one fabric agents, has made comment that, ‘you really know your textiles’, as I swiftly cut through suitcases full of samples first by touch, then by sight, finally by reading the fabric composition label. I always reply, ‘yes because I studied textiles technology when I studied fashion’.

Unfortunately, they tell me that they deal with many designers who do not know their textiles. Crazy right? To me that is like a chef who doesn’t know their animals from their vegetables! Do you want to eat at their restaurant?

When I was an RMIT undergrad in the early 90’s we had to feel, wash, burn and taste… yes taste textile swatches. This probably explains why I describe beautiful textiles as yummy and sometimes make my junior artisans go and retrieve the right weave with their eyes closed. Back in the day we sourced, tested and organised loads, and loads and loads of textile swatches into the natural, man made and synthetic categories, their subcategories and then those tricky blends!

Speaking about tricky blends a couple of years ago a silk supplier slipped me a diluted batch of double face silk satin. We could tell it wasn’t right as soon as we hit it with steam and the smooth surface buckled. The supplier unwittingly corroborated our suspicions by advising us to turn our iron settings down… umm I thought but protein/silk likes a hot steam setting and cellulose/man-made/viscose does not…?

I did a quick burn test plus a RMIT colleague took a peak under the microscope to confirm exactly what our eyes initially told us, the cloth was not in fact pure silk. All the while being threatened by the supplier with debt collection because I refused to pay for the dodgy batch which makes for a fun day at work. I have since replaced that supplier with an Italian couture supplier who also provides the solid science on colour fastness for water, solvent, sweat (and everything else you can throw at it) for the small bespoke parcels that I import for custom orders and the colours are divine too!

Why did I fight so hard with the now banished supplier? I choose specific yarns and weaves because combined with MBP signature tailoring you will get pieces that wear effortlessly for most of the year and rarely need drycleaned – that’s part of what we consider well informed design.

Even though you may not have burnt or tasted any protein or cellulose recently once pure, natural quality textiles have touched you it is hard if not impossible to go back to the swap of confusing cheap blends that are currently proliferating the market. The feel of quality cloth on your body and under your finger tips is second only to having an on demand masseuse walking three steps behind you at all times.

Replacing that sinking feeling you get when your new piece quickly starts to sag, bag, peel, pull, fade, tear and the remedy is dry clean only (but why invest maintence dollars in rubbish so maybe just put it in the rubbish… ?) with the relief and confidence you experience with the endurance of quality cloth is priceless.

Starting from the base of quality textiles is important to anyone who wants to invest in pieces that will keep delivering them joy, for years and years, with every touch of their finger tips. If you want to get that sort of joy respond to this post with the way I feel in my clothes everyday is important to me and I will be in touch as soon as I can.

SINCERELY
Susan Dimasi
DIRECTOR / CREATIVE
MATERIALBYPRODUCT