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 hanging out in Soho. There are lots of name checks of familiar places. Places that I'm not sure even exist anymore. She was one of the "30,000 people" who spent most of the 70s squatting in the many unoccupied homes in London. As she says, "It's now referred to as the Golden Age of Squatting but back then it was just what we did".

I'm not going to give all the anecdotes away but here are some:

For a little while, she shared a flat with Sid Vicious. It was pretty much as you would expect!

She was involved in a documentary with Derek Jarman, a filming of the Alternative Beauty Queen pageant. She and her friends were adopted by Divine.

One of her friends went to the premiere of the Derek Jarman documentary with Suggs. Esme's brother knew him and she needed a man for their planned costume so he set them up. They ended up married and they still are to this day! Esme and her friends designed the wedding outfits.

She comes across equally as lovely in the book as she does in the progamme which makes me very happy. I'd have been really upset if she was anything else.

It's written in an easy-to-read style and in chronological order which is essential in my opinion. I hate biographies that leap all over the place so that you absolutely cannot keep track of the person's life. If you love Sewing Bee and you love Esme, this is the book for you.