Hand & Lock – an embroidery studio with 250 years history

HIGHLIGHTS

Hand & Lock embrace computer-controlled machine embroidery and sustain traditional embroidery techniques
They apply digital technologies and software to facilitate the hand-making processes and reduce mistakes
Many sales are generated from Hand & Lock’s website, although the services/products are not directly sold through the website
Social media including Facebook and Instagram are used to attract customers and raise public attention to their products and services

BRIEF INTRODUCTION

Hand & Lock have 250 years’ experience embellishing, embroidering and monogramming garments for the Royal family, the military and fashion houses including Dior, Hermes and Louis Vuitton. It offers a wide range of services, including monogramming, embroidery pop up and events, foil embossing, bridal embroidery, goldwork, military and ceremonial, bespoke embroidery, personalised clothing, machine embroidery, interior design embroidery, hand guided machine, flags and banners, and emoji monogramming. Now, Hand & Lock are no longer just craftsmen and women but also teachers and promoters for the fine art of embroidery.

The studio of Hand & Lock moved to Margaret Street, London in 2005. It has a store, an open office, a making area, a bead room for meeting and storing beads, and two rooms for machine embroidery. As a commission-based studio, it has 15 full-time employees.

Figure 1: Historical timeline of Hand & Lock (credit to Hand & Lock)

DIGITAL ‘TOUCH POINTS’

DIGITAL EQUIPMENT

There are four digital embroidery machines, an office printer and nine computers in the studio. Recently, Hand & Lock have developed one machine embroidery room and all the machines are in one place. Two full-time digital embroidery designers and a part-time digital embroidery designer are responsible for those digital embroidery machines. Figures show the digital equipment (digital embroidery machines and printer) in Hand & Lock.

Figure 2: Digital equipment (digital embroidery machines and printer) in Hand & Lock

USE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

Machine embroidery offers quality embroidery with added versatility, speed and affordability compared to hand embroidery. The ‘Wilcom ’ EmbroideryStudio e4 combined with digital embroidery machines are used (Figure 3). For most artworks, Hand & Lock will send a mock-up to customers for approval beforehand. With the best embroidery software and technology, designers can skilfully digitise an image, a logo or a design and programme the machine to render it in embroidery so that customers can visually see what it is going to look like when it is stitched. Depending on customers’ budget, digital machine embroidery designers can add more or less details.

Figure 3: Wilcom embroidery software

Both digital embroidery and hand embroidery (Figure 4) have its advantages and disadvantages. It is difficult to achieve certain techniques for goldwork by digital embroidery. There will always be an industry for hand embroidery in tradition and quality and heritage and the value of it because it is much more delicate. However, the speed of hand embroidery is limited. In fashion, digital machine embroidery is more time and cost-effective. More importantly, digital embroidery makes it possible for people with a limited budget to buy embroidery and thus expand the studio’s business. For example, the machine embroidered varsity letters are just £5 while most of the commissioned hand embroidery will charge over a thousand pounds (Figure 5). Therefore, it is essential to find a balance between digital and hand embroidery to help them both flourish and be valued.

Figure 4: Digital embroidery vs hand embroidery

Figure 5: Machine embroidered varsity letters vs Hand embroidered Vera Wang wedding gown

In terms of the sales, digital and hand embroidery is roughly the same due to Hand & Lock is a commission-based studio rather than a big company or factory. Although the actual number of orders for handmade may be less, the price and profit of hand embroidery are high.

USE OF WEBSITE PRESENCE

Hand & Lock’s website is more likely to be a place for them to present their work – a lot of sales probably are generated from the website but are not direct online sales through the website. People see their work on the website and then tend to contact them by phone for further information. Also, Hand & Lock use their website to present samples to people. For example, people may see a badge which contains plate-work on Hand & Lock’s website and would like to use the plate-work in their wedding dresses – instead of buying the badge, people buy the technique.

Figure 6: The screenshot of Hand & Lock’s website

USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Hand & Lock try to show their work visually as much as possible. There are about 23,800 followers on their Instagram (on the left of Figure 7). For example, they organise the Hand & Lock Prize for Embroidery and share participants’ work on Instagram (at the middle and right of Figure 7), which generates a lot of engagement with people (over 3000 followers). As communications Manager- Robert said, “People get excited and talk about the prize, and that generate buzz and spills offline, and then people know about us.” In addition, Hand & Lock always welcome new products, including co-design with external designers and develop their own products, try to actively sell them on their website, Facebook shop (Figure 8) and Instagram shop.

Figure 7: The screenshot of Hand& Lock’s Instagram page

Figure 8: The screenshot of Hand& Lock’s Facebook shop page

USE OF DIGITAL SOFTWARE

Although the design methods and embroidery techniques that Hand & Lock use are traditional, digital techniques are also involved in facilitating the making in order to minimise mistakes and better present their work to customers before final making. When customers want a specific design, it will mocked-up using digital software such as Adobe Illustrator. Then it will be printed onto a tracing paper, for which embroiderers will go over with a very fine needle, to make many holes around the edge and then rub chalk over it. In particular, this digitalisation can reduce errors when customers order many pieces and require them to be the same. The digital files also enable customers to see the design before production.

Figure 9: Digital touchpoints used in Hand & Lock

“The way we get the design even though this is all done by hand it’s a very hand-based process there’s still a lot of digital components… it’s just quite interesting that people might think that it’s all hand-done, but you are combining the two (digital and hand), and that’s a very traditional way of doing it...”

Lucy Howe

Studio manager

CONTACT INFORMATION

Please visit the following site to know more about Hand & Lock:

Website: https://handembroidery.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/handandlocklondon/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/handandlock

SUMMARY

Hand & Lock provide both a digital embroidery service and a very traditional hand embroidery service. Their business is across a wide range of clients, including the Royal family and younger designers. The digital technologies and software have been widely applied to facilitate making, minimise mistakes, and present their work visually to customers beforehand. A lot of sales are generated through their website, and they try to make the best and user-friendly website. Through social media such as Instagram and Facebook, Hand & Lock attract more customers and raise more public attention.

Contact Us

Craftplatforms.org has been produced by the project research team at Queen Mary University of London, UK, and Hunan University, China.

Contact E-mail: contact@craftplatforms.org

For more information or to speak to the craft research team, please contact:

Prof. Nick Bryan-Kinns

n.bryan-kinns@qmul.ac.uk

School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science
Queen Mary University of London
London E1 4NS

Prof. Hao Tan

htan@hnu.edu.cn

School of Design, Hunan University
Yuelu Mountain, Changsha

Craft Platforms: Case studies Hand & Lock