Read our diary blog about a special uniform project with The Royal Shakespeare Company…
Read the entire RSC/Fashionizer blog going back to October 2009.
The blog is written by Liz Wainwright from the RSC and Debbie Leon from Fashionizer, and details the highs and lows of the uniform project from design inception through the various manufacturing and sizing challenges… enjoy reading!
March 2011 – Debbie Leon, Managing Director, Fashionizer
‘Brevity is the soul of wit’ – Hamlet
The Made to Measure uniform patterns are now being produced at the Fashionizer studio in London. From the original pattern, a ‘toile’ is made. (A toile is a version of a garment made to test and perfect a particular design). March sees the production team visiting Stratford again to ensure that these toiles fit the Made to Measure employees before any necessary amendments are made back in London. The pattern grading is then finalised and sent off to the manufacturers. (Grading is where a pattern cutter adds or takes away centimetres from each area of the sample garment in order to size up or down).
March 2011 – Liz Wainwright, RSC
Due to the number of made to measure items, and the knock on effect on production times, Debbie advises us that the delivery dates will be later than we expected a few months ago. We agree to push this later again, to mid May.
Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh visit us on the 3rd March to officially open the building. Their visit is a long one, including a full tour of the building and a meal in our new Rooftop Restaurant. It is preceded by three weeks of exceptionally hard work preparing and working with the Police and Royal Household to ensure that everything goes smoothly on the day. The sun shines all day, crash barriers hold back the large crowds in Stratford and Her Majesty and The Duke have a wonderful visit. Things couldn’t have gone more smoothly.
February 2011 – Debbie Leon, Managing Director, Fashionizer
‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin’ – Troilus and Cressida
How long should a quality uniform last?
Fashionizer has prepared the RSC uniforms order for receipt by our manufacturers: Based on information received from Holly at the RSC, Fashionizer’s Account Manager ensures that each employee receives the appropriate uniform allocation for their role and department – eg full-timers receive more uniforms than those working part-time, and that those requiring skirts or trousers are listed. This is really important because not only does it help us to put together the uniform order for production, but it also allows us to eventually prepare personalised ‘uniform kits’ for each staff member with the exact uniform pieces they need.
Elsewhere in the Fashionizer studio, our Fabric Buyer, Richard is now busy sending out all of the final trims and fabrics to the relevant manufacturers.
January 2011 – Liz Wainwright, RSC
We are now getting used to our new building. We are getting some really great feedback about the building and the staff welcome, and its very satisfying to know that hard work has paid off.
We have organised several days of sessions for all staff to be measured and try on size set items to order the correct sizes they require. Fashionizer kindly assist with this. It’s quite a task, organising over 175 people, working in five different departments working long hours. It takes us a few weeks, but we finally send in our order.
January 2011 - Debbie Leon, Managing Director, Fashionizer
‘When shall we three meet again…?’ – Macbeth
So everyone’s back and rested after the Christmas break. The production team have completed the final few uniform samples, incorporating the relevant tweaks for the waistcoats, jackets and trousers, as highlighted in the uniform wearer trial.
November 2010 – Debbie Leon, Managing Director, Fashionizer
‘I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass, And entertain a score or two of tailors’ – The Tragedy of King Richard the Third
We’ve received some feedback from the wearer trial. We’re pleased that generally all the staff liked the uniforms, and that the comments are specific and very small. For example, they’d like to change the logo’d buttons to plain ones as they look too busy; they want to cut the dress as not enough people will wear it and its too problematic to fit; they want to remove the trim fabric in the back of the male jacket, and they’d like the sleeves to be a bit wider on the shirts to enable them to be easily rolled up.
Now we have all the necessary information, we can make the appropriate changes before we start actually manufacturing the new uniforms.
November 2010 – Liz Wainwright, RSC
As we approach our public re-opening of our transformed buildings, things get very busy. We have now recruited additional staff, over 100 of them, to support our existing teams, and are nearly at the end of a detailed training period. With the finishing touches still being completed on the building, and paint still drying, we are organising quite a lot of our training on site in hard hats and wellies! The look of the staff couldn’t be further away from the look we are trying to achieve with our new uniform!
October 2010 – Liz Wainwright, Head of Theatre Operations, RSC
Testing, testing… 123…
Two staff from each of our different teams have volunteered to take part in the wearer trial. A man and woman from each. A set of clothes for each person arrives and we go about testing these in the Courtyard Theatre. Staff wear the uniform samples whilst they are working and are given forms to fill in to let us know how they feel, how the wash and iron and what the public think of them.
October 2010 – Debbie Leon, Managing Director, Fashionizer
‘For the apparel oft proclaims the man’ – Hamlet
Sample Presentation
We present our final samples to a full room of managers at the RSC, many of whom we have never met before. In true RSC fashion, 2 members of their team volunteered to model the uniforms for everyone. Everyone’s first impression is extremely positive in terms of style, shape and colour. We need to address however a few issues of fit and sizing, as for some reason, all the garments have come up slightly larger than anticipated.
