He Dressed in Black // Dandy Snaps

As we were so excited to launch yesterday - we just had to share all the lovely photos we took of James wearing our 'He Dressed in Black' collection!! (Double exclamation marks there, we mean business!) Dragging the darling Mr Bagshaw out to pose for us in the middle of the countryside, it was so much fun to see the collars come to life, complementing J's own style as well as hinting towards the slightly ostentatious air of the Victorian gentry... just as we envisaged, parfait!

Thanks so much J!


If you missed the launch click here or take a look at our inspirations and concepts behind the creation by clicking here!


Much love,
L&R xx

He Dressed in Black // The Official Launch

At long last, we are pleased to finally reveal our very first collection of bespoke men's accessories! We hope you like...




Green & plum paisley bow trimmed with black velvet.




Green paisley dog ear collar. Silk taffeta lining in mint green. Antique button.




Green & plum paisley dog ear collar. Suede lining in plum. Antique button.




Black velvet dog ear collar trimmed with moss green braid. Green vintage checked cotton lining. Antique button.




Green and black velvet bow neck tie

What do you think? :) - To learn more about the ideas and inspirations behind the collection click here.
We won't be selling these items just yet as the samples are on exclusive loan to The Moons on the Beady Eye tour, eee! They'll soon be available for custom order, if you have any enquiries please contact us via info[at]shedressedinblack.co.uk.
Back to work on the girl's line now...
Much love, L&R xx

He Dressed in Black Launches Tomorrow...

The time is near darlings, after finally completing the last little details this weekend, we are so so close to launching our first collection of men's attire under the name of 'He Dressed in Black'.

We started out with the intention of making a beautiful vintage inspired girls line to fill the gaps in our wardrobes - special pieces that we couldn't find else where. However, it transpired that the menswear industry had needs greater than ours! With the recent influx of sixties styles on the high street for girls at the moment, it is far easier to recreate an authentic vintage look with the aid of add ons and accessories such as collars and bows. We found that opposite sex weren't as well catered for.

We liked the idea of creating an equivalent to the sixties style collars available for girls, allowing boys to add a flamboyant twist to their outfit, harking back to dandyish flair embraced by the mods and the bold expression by the likes of Oscar Wilde. At the same time, we aimed to create a collection centered around distinctly masculine shapes that are both unique and wearable.

Check back tomorrow for the grand reveal!

Much love,

L&R xx

This week in the Studio // He's a Dedicated Follower of Fashion...

Hooray, it's the weekend! Hope you enjoyed the extra addition of some guest posts this week whilst we were busy in the studio! We are tremendously excited to reveal that the little side project that we've been working on is... dum dum duuuuuummm....
He Dressed in Black!
Without giving too much away - we're just about finished, annoyingly our key fabrics were held up in the post (merde!) but we decided to share the alternative fabrics we've sourced for trims and details...

We're working on a few pieces for some very special clientel... More will be revealed in due course (but we couldn't leave you hanging without even a glimpse! ;) )
We've been playing around with shapes, patterns and samples... and getting to do lots of research of impeccably dressed men (hardship...!)
The idea behind 'He Dressed in Black' - our menswear sideline came from one of our first celebratory nights out after we first moved into Twee Towers. We were up till the small hours scribbling in notebooks and sketching out designs - its soo exciting to see it finally come to fruition!
In the same vein of Carla's guest post, where she identified fashion's love affair with vintage styles and shapes, we realised that the men weren't as well catered for in this area. We've been harking back to Victorian Dandies, 20s Bright Young Things and 60s Sophisticats with the hopes of producing something a little niche and covetable for the boys!
We'll talk some more about our inspirations and goals for this collection shortly when we officially launch the pieces (yipeee!) and we promise we won't keep you waiting much longer! Don't worry girls, we're still working on the main collection too!
In the meantime, don't forget to check out our Etsy shop for cool, original prints from the 'I Like You' and 'Ex Boyfriend' ranges!
As always, we'll leave you with a nice tune to start your weekends with... the appropriately titled, 'Dedicated Follower of Fashion'... oh yes he is!

Much Love,

L&R xx

This Week in the Studio...

Hooray! She Dressed in Black are pleased to announce that preparations are well underway for our very first A/W 2011 dress & accessories collection!

Challenging & thrilling in equal measures, we're super excited that we're now in the position to get the ball rolling with this project after over a year of planning. We first started sketching initial ideas before we'd even decided to live together and have been bouncing around and expanding on ideas ever since.

Monday was so much fun, spent gathering materials, ribbons, trims & buttons from around the studio, consolidating ideas and creating the most stunning fabric colour scheme & texture board (even if we do say so ourselves...!) We've gathered up all the essentials & the sewing machine is now in pride of place on the workbench!

Having reached our financial target with the funds we've generated through creating our 'I Like You' prints, we've also just ordered swatches of fabric in a couple of our chosen tones to ensure that the quality is absolutely perfect before ordering our final choice of sumptuous textiles. Cannot wait until they arrive. The next step will be finalising sketches, purchasing fabrics (this may include an exciting trip to London to ransack the cloth houses!) and producing toiles for the samples.

We still can't quite believe that our designs are soon to translate into exquisite & charming attire (eeeee!) and we really hope that you enjoy watching the process of it all coming together :)

So we don't ruin the surprise just yet here's just a small collection of snaps that have been inspiring us in the studio! We'll share some more snippets really soon... Feel free to leave a comment too, we'd love to know what you think!

Much love,
L&R xx