Behind the Seams by Esme Young
Tony got me this book because she always drops little things into the Sewing Bee like, "when I was at a party with Bowie" and "when I rode a motorbike naked" and I kept saying how much I'd like to read more about her life and I was not disappointed. She's surprisingly punk really! If you watch the show but never listen to anything she says the book will really surprise you. She seems like such a little square quiet lady on GBSB but she was pretty ground-breaking in her day. She comes from a very middle-class, happy family. The second of five children, she went to a catholic boarding school with nuns, who were very nice and not at all like the movies will have you believe. It's quite nice to read a biography of someone without a deep dark traumatic past! She went to art college in Cambridge in 1965 and then St Martin's in London, before setting up a shop Swanky Modes, selling their own designs, with some friends. She spent a lot of her time ...