From Joe Lycett's Twitter Feed
No air date has been given yet. But rumors are it will early spring.
The first three seasons are quite possibly my all time favorite television. I have spent innumerable hours with May Martin and Patrick Grant (left in the above photo) coaching and judging amateur sewers (well they did have one couture ringer in season one). While Claudia Winkleman watched and commented, with at times hilarious befuddlement at all the goings on.
I watched, and rewatch, episodes countless times. Almost any time I am working on a project I have GBSB playing in the background. It's like having a sewing group that is instantly available to hang out and work together.
The original formula was for Patrick, a Savile Row guy, to assist and critique the contestants' overall designs and May to get down in the trenches with stitch by stitch oversight. All the while the spectacular Claudia ransacked her way through the through the episode, trying to be helpful and always encouraging.
Those first three seasons felt more like a very funny sewing instruction course (which unfortunately had someone leave at the end of each episode) than a competition. Patrick and May spent more time giving tips to make the sewers better than they did judging at the end of each episode. I half-considered applying just for the chance to learn from them.
Season four took a dip in my estimation. May was replaced by Esme Young (center in photo). Esme is no May Martin. May is a sewing instructor through and through. Esme is a fashion designer. Now she might be a swell sewer as well, but May Martin was the real deal. A sewing instructor with decades of teaching experience. Without a real stitch person in the judging the instructional value of the show plummeted in my estimation. Patrick tried to take the lead in construction judging, but to me it seemed like he just didn't have May's eye to be able to explain to the contestants how to improve their stitch work. The show became less about sewing and teaching us how to be better at it and became more like a knockoff of Project Runway. It devolved into a design competition. To me that was tragic and even Claudia's continued fantastic presenting couldn't right it. Viewership slipped slightly, though still consistently BBC2's first or second place show. Even though I wasn't as over the moon as I was with the first three seasons (that I still watch incessantly) I did watch the entire run.
Season 5 is going to have another hurdle as well. Sadly, Claudia is not coming back. Presenting this season will be Joe Lycett (right in photo).
I truly wish them all the best. In my grandest hopes, Patrick spent the last three years at May Martin's side, learning everything he could so that we will get back to having a show that teaches us more about the art of sewing with a little comedy and competition on the side.
I just discovered TGBSB this year (thank you YouTube!) and binge watched S1-S5 because I loved it so much! I have to agree with your assessment of "the change" in the judging focus after S3 although I didn't pick up on it until you pointed it out. As a former (decades ago) clothing sewer and current quilting fanatic I can certainly both appreciate and understand the difference between "construction" and "design" competence. That also explains why contestants I thought would prevail didn't make it to the finales.
ReplyDeleteWatching the show has me chomping at the bit to return to making clothes although my hold back is that I never learned to fit and tailor, something I never needed when I was still "a mere slip of a girl". It is the thing that I appreciated seeing demonstrated most on TGBSB. I admit, I'd love to see more focus on technical competence (and explanations of same) but we are now more of a visual and throw away world where flash often counts more than substance since we value first impressions more than lasting value. Can't wait until S6 (filming now) is gifted to the internet for us Yanks!
Also glad to find your blog since I am also a novice vintage machine aficionado so will be reading through some of your other posts and hope you are still blogging.
Thanks. I've been kinda distracted the past year. It happens quite often. But I'm still around, still have lots of posts to do. Picked up a couple of Singer 101s last year. And still working on the sewing room... eternally. Do check back and enjoy TGBSB
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete