TEA CUP CUFFS

The bane of my life, tea cup cuffs. Originating from the bell sleeves of ball gowns since the 1600's, the bigger the sleeve the higher the authority and essentially the more money you had. This was our first brief at uni, we were all put into groups and given a trend. Tea Cup Cuffs is something i had never heard of, our task was to create and present 4 mood boards on our trend, collecting photographs from online, in magazines and by taking photos of our own on people we saw wearing the trend and items we saw in shops and on displays.

During this project we had a trip to London, which helped in the sense we had a big opportunity to take as many photos as we could of Tea Cup Cuffs in a wide variety of stores. We visited several high street stores such as River Islandand H+M and couldn't find many examples of Tea Cup Cuffs to photograph. So we decided to try maybe some High street stores targeted at an older audience. Success, we found several examples of Tea Cup Cuffs, however they were only tiny and often masked by a few other things going on with the item. Like a floral Print or appliqué. We just weren't finding what we were after, so we decided to target the complete opposite end of the spectrum and went to explore some higher end retailers, In Selfridges and Libertys, this is where we found our upmost of photo opportunities. We discovered the higher the price label, it seemed the bigger the teacup cuff. The bigger the teacup cuff the fewer other details present on the garment, and the cuffs did all the talking most of the time in a very bold colour and quality thick material for a more robust shaped cuff rather than the cheaper flimsy alternative we had come across previously. Similar to in history, you still have to have the money to afford an impressive cuff from the likes of CLU of Peter Pilotto. I think this really talks a sense of authority, as a working woman couldn't go about her daily routine with massive cuffs that will dip in her gravy as she eats cooks he dinner, or flap around as she drives the car. But of course if you have £900 to spend on this type of garment, are you really driving yourself around or making your own dinner? Ofcourse not, which is why the high street stores had smaller cuffs we think?

However meeting somewhere in the middle, Was Oxford Street's Topshop, in the basement is an outlet of upcoming designers with affordable one off pieces, which some i was very fond of. Most of them reworking older pieces's colourful sleeves onto a new plain bodice. Which was where we collected a lot of photos. Personally i am not a fan of this trend as i the only pieces i was fond of were those completely out of my price range, and even then were impractical. The items i would have been able to afford i felt looked cheap in this style, apart from the one offs we found in Topshop. We really struggled to find anyone out and about actually wearing the trend to stop and take pictures of them, yet of course since this brief has ended of Tea Cup Cuffs are EVERYWHERE, and the trend must have took off a lot more than we thought it would.