It is not that Gillian James is indifferent to the fact that ready-made women’s attire now occupies its own fair share of both the global and local markets. That, however, is nowhere near sufficient to shake her faith in the role that raw fabric has played in the creation of clothing that is fitted and sewn to the taste and desire of the individual. Gillian wants to keep the passion for huge swathes of raw fabric alive. Feeling and fussing with, and for one peculiar reason or another, ruling out or ruling in a particular piece of fabric, then finally, through a process that creates a “hard-to-describe” intimacy between the female and the fabric, arriving at a choice, is, she says, a deeply satisfying experience.
Afterwards, Gillian says, there is the serious business of sitting down with the seamstress and generating a climate of intense fussiness over the ‘perfect fit’ and perhaps an excursion into discourse about matching shoes and accessories. When you get to choose your fabric, she says, it is the beginning of a “hugely rewarding journey.” This is what she aims to offer.
The history of her ‘addiction’ goes back to her earliest exposure to fabric, nurtured more than twenty years ago at Rayon House of Fashion under the management of the late Prince Wills aka ‘Mackie’, whom she says was “all about fabric.” It provided her with an opportunity to swathe herself in fabric. Offering, she says, a certain kind of intimacy.
Once you return to the issue of ready-made clothing as against the starting-from-scratch circumstance associated with fabric, she becomes animated. She has, she says,
no ‘quarrel’ with the ‘off the rack’ adherents though her own experience tells her that there are women – and men, she insists – who crave that start-to-finish intimacy with the clothing that they wear. Gillian challenges you to watch a women carefully select fabric to dress herself for “an occasion” and not to see, first, the intensity in the selection process and afterwards, the end-of-mission expression of a mix of relief and satisfaction that follows what can sometimes be the emotionally draining process at the end of which almost always brings a feeling of immense satisfaction.
In 2018, Gillian brought Willow’s, her fabrics and her flair to the Big Apple Mall on Robb Street (immediately East of the Stabroek News. Her store is the last enclosure on the left, if you walk down the aisle that separates one half of the trading spaces from the other. The small interior at Willows has a cramped but welcoming feeling. The fabrics, an array of them, are displayed on flat, old-fashioned spools. It is the ideal haunt for fabric fanatics with a passion for browsing.
Fabric has taken Gillian deeper into the world of fashion. She has, it seems, realised some measure of success as an Advisor/Consultant to a number of events. There, she had immersed herself in some of her favourite pursuits… like fabric and style selection for events. This, she says, is her comfort zone.
Her ambition, so it seems, is to go as far as she can to transform Willow’s into a shrine to fabric. She wants to be busying herself, hovering over serious-faced visitors to Willow’s while they scrupulously examine the fabric that she offers, fingers sandwiching the surface, making judgements mostly by touch and finally lifting their eyes from the fabric and cracking a smile that says both satisfaction and relief. It is like the end of what, often, is an arduous but, finally, rewarding pursuit.
Gillian James can be reached at Willow’s on 6844081
