Tom's Sons

 

Above: Leon Kalajian

Tom’s Sons International Pleating has been a family-owned fabric and textile pleating business in New York city’s Garment District since 1931. 

“My mother was doing pleating when I was very, very young. Every chance I get, I am in the factory — I was 6 years old. I have to work. I cannot stay at home. I have to do something. I have to be around people. Someday they ask you: ‘When the pleating is not in fashion, what will you do?’ I do pleating! For me it never goes out, the pleating. Every day I can create a new style.” 

Leon Kalajian

                               

George Kalajian (above) is a  master craftsman in New York City’s Garment District, with pleating expertise passed down through five generations. He has collaborated with many prestigious fashion brands and institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dior and film and television productions. He is the current owner of Tom’s Sons International Pleating, established by his grandfather Leon, George oversees every aspect of production, preserving and advancing the art of pleating for future generations.

'Yaghshiye'

 'Yaghshiye', by @loloyaghshi, @syrayaghshi and @zayre_yaghshi, is a stunningly sculptural, culturally rich, talismanic collection drawing from Northern Pakistan's Chitral’s culture and landscape, Yaghshiye reflects the realities of the Hindu Kush: oversized padding, heavy quilting, and cocooning shapes built around protection and survival. Embroidery documents Khow handiwork, honouring Chitral and its indigenous Khow and Gujoor communities.Via @sitara_studios - fan alumni from our diet paratha mentoring programme. 

Kathy Udaondo Lennon

 

"This project investigates the intricate connection between belonging and identity, exploring how environments shape our sense of self and thinking about the boundaries between the individual and others. It questions belonging as an ideal, presenting it instead as an embodied process of craftsmanship, repetition, and return. Additionally, it examines how identity is reconstructed after leaving a place of belonging or breaking long-held beliefs.

The themes are explored through The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir, which follows Silvie and Andrée, two girls in post-war France navigating societal expectations. Silvie ultimately reconstructs her identity by rejecting these norms, while Andrée remains confined by them, leading to her gradual decline. At its heart, the story reflects the tension between living for oneself and living for others." Kathy Udaondo Lennon

Kathy Udaondo is a costume designer and maker originally from the Basque Country. She completed an MA in Costume Design for Performance in 2025 at the London College of Fashion and won the Linbury Prize, after working primarily in wardrobe departments for film. She is now focusing on live performance, her practice explores the intersection between costume and set, focusing on the dialogue between people and their surroundings. She designs with functionality at the core, ensuring that garments are embedded in the action of the character and that aesthetics emerge naturally from purpose. She works with deadstock fabrics and zero-waste patterns, approaching each project with sensitivity to both materials and context. 

Matthew Dalziel and Louise Scullion

 

The 'Walking Dress' from 2014 by Matthew Dalziel and Louise Scullion with tailoring and construction in collaboration with Tracey Stewart.

"This work draws from the Victorian fashion of cumbersome dresses designed to stride in and take the air. The bodice of the dress is accurately tailored from period patterns of the time, but the skirt morphs into a suggestive geology of glacially worn rocks with ridges and gullies. The dress material is a conglomerate of recycled textile. The silhouette of the torso conjures up a period of time when society embraced industrial processes that changed forever the finite balance of the resources we require to sustain our lifestyles. The contours of her skirt recalls familiar Scottish landscapes shaped by slow erosions and dark volcanic undertakings, however the landscape she is moving towards is another era where humans have left a permanent and profound footprint."

 

Amal Kenawy

 

Amal Kenawy's  (1974-2012) 'non stop conversation' was a piece created in 2007 where Amal wrapped a dismissed deteriorating structure at Bait al Ansari in satin quilting, exploring the tension between modernisation and traditional architecture or vanishing beauty!

Amene Purkhalil

 

Joyful narrative embroidery by illustrator Amene Purkhalil.

Sawa Matsuda

 

The macramé lace jewellery of Japanese textile artist Sawa Matsuda reminds me of the structure of coral, beautiful intricate structures and patterns.