Welcome to Designer's Delights - the regular insight into working as a designer in the heady, secret underworld of an alternative clothing brand!
During August and September we've been to Infest, visited the fabric warehouse to get some new material, and took a trip to the factory where our new JPOL Ambassador badges and cuff links will be made. All this, as well as making lots and lots of garments, designing some JPOL Jodhpurs, and producing quite a few new JPOL videos too! Infest 2010! We had a fantastic time at Infest in Bradford this year! We sold lots of things to many wonderful customers, both previous JPOL fans coming back for more, and new converts alike. The new people-friendly layout there was great, as it meant that we could communicate with people easily instead of battling with being heard over the PA system all the time! And, it meant that we could set up our stall on the first day and just leave it there overnight, rather than have to break it all down and set it all up again the next day. This was a real blessing as it meant we didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn like we’d usually have to otherwise! Out and about with JPOL Jed visited the gigantic and wonderful fabric warehouse - or rather ‘the dressmaker’s paradise’ as one JPOL facebook fanpage member quite rightly puts it - for some new material. She took along Grace, our summer intern... and very nearly lost her amongst the endless rolls of fabulous fabrics there! We also visited the family run factory where our new JPOL cuff links and JPOL Ambassador badges are going to be made, and we met some of the lovely ladies who will soon be hand-painting each our new badges one of four different colours! Cuff links The first set, in silver and black, of our new Limited edition cuff links will be ready in time for Whitby Goth Weekend: we’ll be selling them in presentation boxes for £50, but you can have a pair completely free if you spend £300 or more in one purchase!JPOL Ambassador badges Soon to be a cult status alternative to Blue Peter badges are our new JPOL Ambassador badges! They come in 4 different colours which denominate 4 different ‘ranks’ of ambassador: Purple - Purple badges will be given to all the lovely people who kindly help us with our load in/load out at any of the events we set our stall up at Green - You’ll get one of these green goddesses if you spend £500 or more with JPOL Red - If you send us a testimonial and photo of you wearing your JPOL gear for inclusion on the new JPOL website, you’ll receive a badge in dashing, head turning red... Black - If you don your own JPOL gear and help us to sell our wares at a two or three day event, then you’ll become the proud owner of your very own beautiful black JPOL badge!In the Studio with JPOL At the fabric warehouse, Jed chose a 70m of prime Pinstripe material, so we’ve been making more Victoriana jackets and Urban Squire waistcoats, cutting up pin-stripe material by many a metre. We also bought plenty of black canvas too, as well as a fair few metres of our colourful satin linings, for kilts, strait jackets and hats. It was a bit like the Krypton factor in the studio when we were making our Lace up jackets - trying to work out exactly how to put them together again after so long was pretty tricky! We managed some rather meticulous pattern piece layouts whilst we cut a good batch of these newly revived jackets. We also had to finish loads of things off in time for Infest - which we managed just in the nick of time, thankfully. New Jodhpurs! We’ve also been designing a new garment! Our new Jodhpur design is part of our military style range of garments, they come in battleship grey cotton drill with black satin lining, and 20 gorgeous military style buttons each individually hand sewn on. These will be available to buy at Whitby Goth Weekend this October, in sizes 30", 32", 34" and 36" waist, price £175. After someone fell in love with the one and only sample pair of the new Jodhpurs worn by Jed at BBB, we had to do some pretty speedy pattern grading to get a pair ready in time for their first new proud owner, before he left for Saudi Arabia! The gift of art! Jed was most chuffed to have received a surprise canvas painted by JPOL fan and budding artist, Husbondi. This now hangs proudly in the Jed Phoenix of London studio, and will only be sold when Husbondi is so famous that the proceeds from the sale will buy a country retreat. If you want to donate to the country retreat fund too, we'd be happy to accept more JPOL inspired artwork! Videos We’ve been busy doing photo and video shoots, and putting together quite a few new JPOL videos. Recently we’ve been concentrating on our Japanese Global Warrior outfit - ‘How to’ videos include how to correctly put on the JPOL Hakama pants, as well as our fully lined Kimono with Cummerbund style obi. There’s also a video showing off the whole Global Warrior ensemble of kimono, kataginu, obi and hakama pants in true ‘Aikido’ style action. As well as all this, take a look at our vids for JPOL Bondage Strap Trousers, JPOL Asymmetric Skirt, JPOL Military Style Bondage Jacket and our JPOL Strap Tailcoat - more to come very soon! Also, here’s a video introduction to the very talented and rather lovely Elaine, who’s our chief Machinist here at Phoenix Towers. If you fancy keeping up to date with all our latest videos, you can subscribe to the JPOL YouTube channel! And last, but by no means least... Jed is now an official Princes Trust Volunteer Mentor - with her own badge and everything! She’s very proud of this, as it was through the Princes Trust that she got help to start up what eventually became Jed Phoenix of London. She felt that she wanted to ‘give something back’, and so set about applying to become a mentor with the Princes Trust herself - and now her wish has come true!
