Sewing
CLARE BRADLEY: GREAT BRITISH SEWING BEE CHAMPION 2020 Minerva Miller discusses practical glamour and the lost art of mending with 2020’s Sewing Bee Champion Clare Bradley @clare.bradders
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hile watching the first episode of the 2020 series of The Great British Sewing Bee last April, one of the contestants immediately stood out: wearing a vintage inspired dress, she expressed her enjoyment of ‘vintage events’ at which there was ‘lots of gin’. This was Clare Bradley from Winchester, whose accurate sewing skills, consistency and creativity eventually led her to win the competition. Clare’s plucky cheerfulness and steely determination (think a combination of Celia Johnson and Jane Marple wielding a sewing machine) matched her forties-inspired wardrobe.
Her success is even more remarkable when set against the demands of her profession. Clare is a Respiratory Hospital Consultant and spent much of last year at the sharp end of the Covid-19 pandemic. Apart from your sewing skills, the thing that really marked you out on screen was your vintage aesthetic, not only in your appearance but the clothes you obviously enjoy making – what drew you to it? On a very basic level, clothing from the 1940s is just the right shape for my figure. I make them, they fit
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