As a fashion student, the location of
fabric stores and cheap haberdasheries are an essential. In Newcastle, despite
the fact Northumbria University is widely known for their successful Fashion
course, there are very little places to source fabrics!
John Lewis provides a adequate selection of
‘the basics’ such as standard zips, buttons and sewing machines parts. The
fabrics they stock aren’t as basic as they come in beautiful and contemporary
patterns and colours, but for a student, most of them are slightly out of my
price range.
1st for Fabrics have a fantastic
range of fabrics for all kinds of crafts. The staff are extremely helpful and
they’re not overpriced what so ever! However they are slightly harder to find,
I had not idea where Benton was, although I have lived in Newcastle for over a
year now, but neither did the taxi driver! It was rather pricey to get there
too, although I am eternally grateful to the taxi driver for waiting for me
while I was in there, a £20 fair was a bit of a punch in the face for the
smallest fabric swatches and a zip or two. But I’m sure a get a bus next time.
If you are looking for a particular
coloured or printed fabric, and neither of these places have it, you’ll have to
go much further afield to get it. Unless its LEATHER!...
Le Prevo is an independent leather shop in
the heart of Newcastle. They have been trading for over 40 years and all the
staff incredibly friendly and know everything there is to know about leather,
how to use it and how it will age.
Roles of beautifully coloured and treated
leather reach the ceiling, and the smell is to die for! They literally have
everything colour, thickness and type of leather a customer could want.
From a fashion student’s perspective, THEY
SWACTH FABRIC!! The staff will go out of their way to find the particular
leather you are looking for, and will cut and label the swatches for you. Not
many fabric shops let you swatch and more often then not you have to buy 10cm
worth for 10% of the price, its not expensive but not very helpful.
Once Le Prevo was only known locally, but due to a high demand in good quality leather, they now distribute their fabric worldwide!
Now not everyone likes for use leather for
ethical reason, but also because it can be very pricey. Which is true, but for
an extremely good quality piece for fabric, the prices are great! For anyone
that doesn’t know, leather is measured in feet because animals aren’t rectangular
shaped, and you pay for a square-foot.
For anyone who is familiar with Newcastle,
it is about a 10-15 minutes walk from the ‘Northumbria University Design
Building’, and it’s free to get ever obviously! They are slightly hidden away
though and difficult to find at first, but with the help of Google maps and
friendly geordies you’ll soon realise it is right in front of your face!
 |
| This is the piece of white leather I bought. It cost me £30, which really surprised me and I was extremely happy! It's very soft and just a good quality fabric! I am now obsessed with leather, that sounds slightly weird, but I now want my entire fourth year final collection to be in leather! (lets hope I win the lottery!) |
No comments:
Post a Comment