Esme Young | |
|---|---|
| Born | Emma A. Young 1949 (age 75–76) Bedford, Bedfordshire, England |
| Education | Central St Martins |
| Occupation | Fashion designer |
| Label | Swanky Modes |
| Parent(s) | Brian Pashley Young CB CBE , Patricia Cole |
Esme Young (born 1949) is an English fashion designer and television presenter. [1] [2] Since 2016, she has been a judge on the BBC reality series The Great British Sewing Bee . [3]
Emma Young was born in 1949 at Bedford Hospital, [4] the second of five children. [5] [2] Her sister Fiona Espenhahn is also a textile artist. [6] Her brother Jeremy is a documentary film producer. [6]
Her father, Air Vice Marshal Brian Pashley Young CB CBE (1918–1992), was born in Natal, South Africa, [7] and was a career officer in the RAF. [5] He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1944, [8] a Commander of the same order in 1960, [9] and a Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1972. [10] In Series 8 of The Great British Sewing Bee , Young revealed that her father was captain of Wasps RFC in the 1950/51 season. Her mother, Patricia Josephine Cole, was a secretary who worked as a nurse during the Second World War. [2] [11] Young has told interviewers she was "partially deaf" as a child due to otitis media, which affected her reading development and still impacts her life. [12]
Young began attending boarding school at age five. [4] She attended the Convent of the Holy Ghost, Bedford, where she learnt to draw and to sew. [13] She went on to Saint Martins School of Art. [13] [2] When a tutor mispronounced her name as Esme, she began using that instead. [4]
In 1972, Young, along with fellow fashion designers Judy Dewsbury, Melanie Herberfield, and Willie Walters, founded a shop in Camden Town called Swanky Modes. [14] [15] [1] Young told an interviewer the group opened the shop because they "couldn't buy anything we wanted to wear in shops, so we made whatever we wanted to wear". [16]
The house was known for "raunchy body-con dresses". [17] [18] A transparent macintosh that was one of the company's early designs was photographed by Helmut Newton for Nova. [19] Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Swanky Modes clothing appeared in Vogue, Honey and The Face. [3] Their clothing was also photographed by David Bailey, Nick Knight, and John Swannell. [3] Clients included Grace Jones, Julie Christie, and Cher. [20] [21] The company's lycra Amorphous dress is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. [6]
Young has made costumes for many films including The Beach, Bridget Jones's Diary , Romeo & Juliet and Trainspotting. [13] [22] She designed the bunny costume worn by Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary. [12]
Since 2016, Young has been a judge on The Great British Sewing Bee . [3] One of Young's most famous designs was the 'Amorphous Dress' worn by Linda Kozlowski in the 1986 movie Crocodile Dundee ; a dress that is now in the V&A Collection. [13]
In December 2022, she was a contestant on Richard Osman’s House of Games . [23]
She teaches at Central Saint Martins and is involved in a project called "Exploding Fashion" which highlights the importance of pattern cutting. [22] [24]
Young published her autobiography in 2022: Behind the Seams: My Life in Creativity, Friendship and Adventure from the star of the Great British Sewing Bee. [25] [26]
In the 1970s Young squatted in a West London terrace. Young lives in Islington in a rent-controlled Peabody flat she started renting in 1983. [27] She owns a beach hut in Kent. [27]
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