Silk Waistcoat and Tie. Georgian Elegance. 2026.

Silk Waistcoat and Tie inspired by a waistcoat seen in the 1983 BBC TV series, Mansfield Park by Jane Austin and also inspired by three inherited old pillow cases of the same design.

The waistcoat seen in the BBC series was of a light cream background with equally spaced dark green stripes, giving an understated Georgian elegance. The old pillowcases were inherited from my Great Aunt Lilian. The pillowcases are of a light cream cotton and have an arrangement of machine stitched stripes of black cotton all equally vertically spaced. Each stripe is composed of a thick width inner black cotton stripe with a thin black cotton stripe on each side. I thought that I could make a simple design from this arrangement but changing the black for blue and keeping the light cream, as I do like the combination of blue and cream. So my design keeps that arrangement of stripes but the central stripe is now a blue barley like twist and the two outer stripes are now vertical blue scrolls. They have been loosely drawn to represent a sewn pattern, hence to get away from a machine like pattern and to visually celebrate my Grandmother, Great Aunt Lilian and Great Aunt Florence who were all experts at sewing and making clothes. Those stripes of blue are placed upon a base of light cream. To enliven the light cream base a contrasting dark cream vertical stripe is placed on top of that base. To create overall visual interest and a lift for this pattern, a pattern of blue and red dots are set upon white discs, the red colour contrasting with the blue. Hopefully my design creates a simple understated elegant design reflecting the Georgian period.

The silk fabric was supplied by and printed on by Contrado and the waistcoat and tie were made by Harris & Howard Bespoke Tailors.