‘I saw your website and wondered if you ever made bespoke items?’, the e-mail said. Well yes, we do. We’ve made lots of bespoke items over the years – a dressing gown for a toy sloth, a new dress for a 60 year-old childhood doll, a pair of dungarees for a well-travelled bear. Sometimes we have the toy in front of us and sometimes we just have a lot of measurements.
This time, we were sent a Curious George toy to dress. Curious George is a fictional monkey from a series of children’s books written and illustrated by married couple Margret and Hans Rey. Curious George first appeared in 1939 as a monkey named ‘Fifi’ in Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys but was re-named Curious George in 1941.
The story of the authors, Margret and Hans Rey, is a remarkable tale in itself. They were a Jewish couple, living in Paris at the outbreak of the Second World War. By the time they went to the bicycle shop on 11th June 1940, there was only a tandem left. They tried it out and realised that they couldn’t manage it. So, Hans bought spare parts and built two bicycles that evening instead. They escaped Paris on their homemade bikes and eventually made it to the United States, via Spain, Portugal and eventually Rio. They took very little luggage with them but they did take a series of drawings about a curious monkey. The American publisher convinced them to re-name their monkey character and Curious George was born.
The Jemima Company's commission was to make a set of clothes for this Curious George toy, like an illustration the customer sent us — tartan trousers and jacket, waistcoat, shirt, tartan tie, sash and tartan bunnet (hat). We needed to use Fraser Hunting Weathered tartan for the outfit, which we sourced, and it was needed by a specific date in July.
The first thing we do with any commission, is to try on some of the dolls clothes we make to see if we can alter our existing patterns. Our dolls trousers fitted George round the middle but were a bit too long in the leg; and our dolls blouse fitted pretty well except for the fact that Curious George’s neck was much larger than Jemima’s! Then we needed to draft patterns for the jacket and waistcoat, source buttons, find some suitable waistcoat fabric, and make a tiny tartan tie. Then there was the tartan bunnet. This was slightly tricky but we cut out a triangle and put six together and it made an ideal hat for Curious George’s head, along with hat band and peak at the front (a monkey has a very good shape of head for a bunnet). The very last thing to do was to make a tartan sash to go over his shoulder and stitch a suitable button on it.
We had to ask our customer what this commission was all about, of course. Curious George was going to our customer’s sister-in-law to celebrate her 60th birthday. She is a big fan of Curious George AND is a big fan of Outlander. The main character in Outlander (apparently), wears Fraser Hunting Weathered tartan so our customer had certainly done his research to come up with the perfect birthday gift.