At Liberty
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—if I find Liberty London fabrics at the thrift shops, I will buy it no questions asked. Even if I’ve pledged to not to buy clothes for 75 days (Google #75dayhardstyle challenge) Liberty still gets a pass. Even if I’m not 100 percent sure if it’s not Liberty I will buy first, ask questions later.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that I bought a cute but unlabelled tiered maxi skirt this afternoon and then spent some time this evening trying to find this floral pattern on the internet to confirm my suspicions.
Step one was to compare the fabric to labelled examples of Liberty pieces I already have in my closet. Liberty does a lot of collaborations with retailers. The shirt pictured above was produced by Simons, a Quebec-based department store.
Liberty’s most famous fabric is Tana Lawn. This ultra fine cotton has a distinctive fluid hand-feel — almost silk-like. This new skirt feels very much like the Simons shirt.
Many of my Liberty garments are coproductions with Tilley Endurables, the venerable Canadian outfitters. This makes sense because Tana Lawn fabric is soft yet durable, cooling yet warming, and even machine washable. Above is a label from a skirt in my wardrobe which advises that “machine drying helps to maintain stain resistance.”
Step two is to compare the quality of the print. Look at the label-side of picture of this print with the “good” side image of the material. Sharp colours and patterns are another signature of Tana Lawn cotton. The new skirt’s not quite as sharp on the reverse, but it’s not bad either. I’ll call step two a draw.
Step three requires detective work. Tana fabrics are produced in bolts of 25 metres with a roll width of 1.36m/1.33m. Which is why many of the maxi skirts that employ Liberty materials are tiered like this one.
And then there’s poring through Liberty’s online archives trying to find a match for this print. Not any easy task because the company has produced over 50,000 patterns since Arthur Lasenby Liberty began printing textiles in 1904.
But I like a challenge.