Titillating tidings of a new collaboration between silk maestro Geoff Stocker and this publication.
Eastbourne Pier and fine silk headscarves are not bedfellows that immediately spring to mind. Yet on one damp day that purported to be during the English Springtime, this publication turned the salty slats of the wooden pier into the Silk Road just for a day. The Pier is known colloquially as ‘Sheik’s Pier’ after its owner, 70-year-old hotelier Sheikh Abid Gulzar, who bought the pier after it was nearly destroyed by fire in 2014. Gulzar has restored the pier to its former glory, his personal touch being some gold paint on the lions that dot the iron pillars all the way along it.
So how did The Chap, photographer Ross Robertson, model Ruby Demure and fashion designer Geoff Stocker all end up admiring the golden lions on Eastbourne Pier one Wednesday afternoon in late April?
A collaboration between Geoff Stocker and The Chap will see the launch of a specially designed new pocket square and a ladies’ headscarf later this year. In the meantime, we have released various items from the Geoff Stocker archive in our online store, to celebrate the breadth and scope of Mr. Stocker’s designs. He is known primarily for pocket squares and silk dressing gowns, but over the years has also manufactured ranges of exquisite neckties, bandanas and women’s silk scarves, only some of which are currently available in his online store.
During a visit to the Geoff Stocker ‘Atelier’, while poring over the extensive product archive, Mr. Stocker dismissively waved to a large box of items he once designed for the ladies’ accessories market. “It would have involved a huge amount of extra work to create a completely new range for women” he says. “So I was persuaded to stick to men’s pocket squares and dressing gowns as my main product line, which I am perfectly happy with, as it means I can focus on continually adding new designs to those lines and not spread myself too thinly.”
When the box marked mysteriously as ‘Women Square and Long’ was opened, it revealed a veritable treasure trove of headscarves, neckerchiefs and bandanas, all with the trademark intricate colourful designs, and all printed to a very high standard on a variety of fine silks. The outing for the entire collection to Eastbourne Pier was the first time many of these items had seen the light of day in the 5 or 10 years since they were first created.
This women’s scarf collection is now available from www.thechap.net. Since each item is unique, once sold it will never be replaced. However, while working up a Chap/Geoff Stocker pocket square design, we shall also be looking at developing a ladies’ headscarf, much like the ones you can see in these photographs.
