The interiors work kicked in probably two months into lockdown - some friends had asked me if I would make a pair of curtains for them, and obviously fashion wasn't happening at that point because of coronavirus. My background is in fashion, specialising in tailoring and working closely with a lot of the Scottish and English textile mills. Five years ago, I was getting a bit bored with fashion and decided to do an upholstery course in Bridgeton. It was an HND but I decided I'd just do the HNC because I really just wanted the skills and I've already got various degrees.
After completing the HNC, I didn't do anything with it. But I still had all these skills and I'd mucked about with bits and bobs - chairs and things. I was in my flat with my partner getting itchy feet during lockdown. Nothing had really happened in the last year with tailoring work, so I kind of felt it was time for a change. I did a couple of small upholstery jobs - I restored a beautiful chair for a friend whose dog had eaten it, they loved it, so that was just kind of a spark. I have a lot of hobbies and everything is related to making in one form or another, and it always includes clothes. In the past I'd look at making something like curtains and think ‘urgh’, but then I thought, actually, I could make this quite interesting. So that was the catalyst to do something a bit more modern and use these skills I have to make something new.
So, I just went for it, and this month is our first doing interiors and we've got a lot going on right now, and lots of prospective stuff. I said to myself that I wish I'd done this before, but I believe that things come to you at the right time in life, but I like the idea that I can still take some of the elements from my past work, which is still very much there. It just all kind of flows through it, especially cloth. I'm not dealing with people as much, I'm dealing with chairs, which is really nice. You can really work on it and you've not got anyone saying, ‘Can you move that hem up a bit?’ - so it's quite pleasant.
Through working in fashion, I've set up studios for years, in different places, I'm a dab hand at it and I know how machines work - it's a culmination of experiences. Some people say they can't believe that I’ve set up a new studio so quickly, but it's dead easy. I know the people to call to get what I need, so all those things add up, and I was just in the right frame of mind for doing this - interiors, with a twist.
At the minute we've got a prospective bar that wants their curtains and everything done, and there's a house that we started working on at the beginning of the month up in Morar. So again, we're working with Harris Tweed Hebrides and we're working with a lot of English mills. Fabric is very different in terms of interiors - they're all hazard treated, and as much as cloth is cloth, it has different uses - for wearing or for interiors.
It’s great and I'm loving it. I met my partner about a year ago, he's amazing and I just thought well, this is all new, and sometimes you get a bit of baggage with the old career stuff, and I thought, let's just try something different. Let's make it a new fresh start. I've been doing fashion since I was 14 years old – for a long time, I had the desperation to be a fashion designer, and then, when I got to that point, I was like, I'm here now, what’s next?
This career shift is like a turning over of things and I feel very lucky considering all the crap that's going on at the moment with the pandemic. I'll still dabble in a bit of tailoring because I like making my own clothes. I think that's what makes this so agreeable to me - I can still go down that road and make a pair of trousers and then I can come back to this. I've had lots of great feedback and I think people are curious as well, because I’ve had this history with fashion, so they're asking 'What's Deryck doing now?' - so, it's a lovely wee rebirth.
