RIP Textile King

I had a genuine feeling of deja vu today.

In September 2010 I reported the closure of Soho Silks, a fabric shop I used to visit quite a lot. It was secretly there that I found the rolls of genuine Blue Tennant Suit fabric hidden away in their basement.

Well today I was in town, and discovered the closure of not one, but TWO further establishments I used to frequent – one a great loss the other a deserved closure. But more of that later.

Textile King

This was not the most pretty of shops from the outside, but it hid a treasure trove of suiting and tailoring materials which I found myself returning to again and again.

The brown fabric I used for Ian Cummin’s Frock Coat (see left), as well as another I did him in a navy blue were sourced here.

More recently I found it was the perfect place to get the buttons for my Matt Smith Shetland Tweed Jacket, and had reason to believe it could we have been the original source for these.

I was told on more than one occasion that Ray Holman, the costume designer for series five, had frequented there and bought the material for Captain Jack’s shirts when he worked on Torchwood.

The proprietor had been shown a sneaky preview of the Matt Smith costume well before it was launched and I gather at one point even Russell T Davis had been a visitor when he was Executive Producer!

So the shop does have a bit of a special place in the Doctor Who lore.