Saturday, March 3, 2012

trim trauma


We were running out of the trim that we used on our uniforms and I bet you didn't know that trim is getting more and more difficult to source. Like many products that we use, many manufacturers, especially in North America have downsized or gone out of business completely, which leaves us in the lurch.
So, it's a long story but the buyers found someone who was able to make us more trim.
When you try to get a replica of something made, you know that it is never going to be exactly like the old product, but live in hope that it will be close.
Well the new trim came in this week and it wasn't until today that we had really had a go at using it.
Not so good.
I really never thought much about how trim is made, and really, if it works for us, it works, and we use what we are given.
The new trim doesn't want to bend nicely. Yes it is a different colour but we can live with that I guess, but it is uncooperative. Why?

Well the base or interior of the trim tells the story. The old trim is created over a flat 1/4" wide woven braid that is very flexible as you can see in the picture.
The new trim has many many strands of coarse thread bunched together inside. It does not like to bend. The strands are really tightly packed. I was able to cut a length of trim and painstakingly pull out 6 or 8 strands which made it more flexible but still isn't as bendable as we would like.
Sigh..........but now I know.

1 comment:

  1. I really fell in love with the trim on the jacket sleeves. I have been looking for something similar (with no luck). However, seeing what you ended up with made me shudder a bit. Looking at it alone is painful. Surely you have an expert technique up your sleeve to make this trim sing'n'dance.

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