Brian Piccolo Wows them all at Hornchurch & Upminster F
ebruary 2nd 2012 was one
of the coldest days of the year, with an Arctic wind blow- ing from the north, but the draw attracting all was our speaker at the Club’s special event that evening: Brian Piccolo!
B
rian was not only a most effective DG, but he is Essex’s leading
couturier. From an early age Brian was interested in the design of clothes and offered his somewhat astounded mother to design a dress for her, and what’s more he did, and she was delighted! Now there was no stopping young Brian. He wanted to go to art school to learn more about dress design, but this wasn’t possible. So he joined the Inland Revenue in a clerical position – not per- haps the best place for a would-be cou- turier – but this was soon turned to his advantage, as the majority of staff were women, and he offered to design dresses for them, and, after an initial surprise, they accepted – and he never looked back after this.
H
e decided to set up his own dress shop in Colchester and soon be-
came widely known as a most reliable and original dress designer for much of Essex and Suffolk. From here his fame spread, as did the geographical area of his clients. It is said about Brian’s dresses that you can wear a Piccolo dress inside-out and it still looks good.
B B
His only small sadness is that although he is on the list of approved dressmakers to the Queen he is still, after 53 years in dressmaking, waiting for a call from Buckingham Palace. Surely this must come?
rian now lives for much of the year in Spain, but regularly returns to
Colchester to ensure that he keeps his clients happy.
esides talking about his life in dress-making, Brian thrilled his au-
dience by spending much of his evening with us revealing the practicalities of dress design and fitting, and for this he had brought along a wide range of his dresses, fabrics and hats.
There was
rapt attention from everyone – men and women – at this packed Rotary event: his main demonstrations were on a dressmaker’s model, which he twirled in a most expert and instructive manner, clearly giving the effects he desired each dress to have, especially emphasising the effect of the under-slip on different colours and textiles in dress design. For Brian, it is the fabric that inspires the dress design, and his favourite fabric shop is Joel & Son Fabrics near Lon- don’s Edgware Road. Joel’s has thou- sands of rolls of different fabrics enough to gladden any dress designer’s eye – especially Brian’s! What an evening!
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