Our Pearly Suit:The Finished Pieces

We finished the suit in just two days flat which was quite surprising as there were only three of us (Sian, Graham and myself) working on the suit and we thought it would have taken us alot longer. Here is our very own finished Pearly Kings and Queens suit: hat, jacket and trousers.

Pearly Kings and Queens: Winning!

I am pleased to say that our tutors were very impressed with our suit design as well as the thinking behind it and the creativity that went into it. Therefore my group was one of three groups to win the competition to have our suits put into production. From this week we will begin work on actually creating the suits and updates will be posted on the blog as production gets underway. Once the suit is completed it will be displayed in the University of Huddersfield Degree Show, the University of Huddersfield Library and hopefully the Vivienne Westwood Shop in Manchester. I say hopefully as negotiations are still underway. Updates will be posted.

Pearly Kings and Queens: Getting A Theme

Once we had established what Pearly Kings and Queens were, we were then told that we would be creating our ow version of a Pearly suit as part of a class competition. There would be three winners of this competition who would get their suit design put into production and displayed at the University Degree Show following which they would be displayed in the University Library.

Unlike the Pearlies however,we would use badges, like the ones below, rather than buttons for our suits.


We were then given several themes for our suit designs. My group picked renewable energy.Following much discussion and debate decided that we wanted to go with two mini themes within the heading of renewable energy which were solar power and recycling. We decided to cover the solar power idea by spelling out the words solar power on the suit and using badges to create solar panels on the suit. To cover the recycling part we decided to make the badges out of recycled crisp packets.

Pearly Kings and Queens: Research

This module, Conceptual Design is the biggie worth 40 credits. For this first term project we were organised into groups and told to research pearly Kings and Queens. My group included Sian, Kuv, Jack and Graham. This is what I came up with for the research part of this project:

The pearly Kings and Queens originated in the year 1875 and were founded by Henry Croft (1862 - 1930). Some Pearly Kings and Queens still reign today in their various London districts. The Pearlies were costermongers or street vendors of fruit and vegetables, and their distinctive costumes are said to have sprung from a big cargo of buttons from Japan in the 1860's.

It seems that one of the costermongers sewed some of the buttons round the edge of his wide-bottomed trousers and the fashion caught on. Traditionally costers elected 'Kings' to lead them against bullies seeking to drive them from their pitches. Each individual area of London had a King and his 'donah' or wife. and both were elaborately turned out.




The magnificent suits, hats and dresses, handed down together with hereditary titles, are sewn with mystic symbols, stars, moons, suns, flowers, diamonds, trees of life, eyes of Gods and fertility designs. Each outfit can have as many as 30,000 buttons on it and can weight as much as 30 kilograms or more.

Nowadays these suits are worn at charity events, christenings, weddings and funerals. Where there is a special charity drive the Kings and Queens ride in splendour on their decorated carts. At the annual autumn Harvest Festival service at St Martin-in-the- Fields Church in London, the Pearly princesses take bouquets of vegetables as thank offerings.

Source: http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/PearlyKingsQueens.htm