A quiz question for you, just in case you haven’t had enough of those: What is a placket?
Is it a) a type of fish, b) a very small plaque or c) a double layer of fabric that conceals the button in a shirt or skirt.
You’ve probably guessed from the headline that it’s c). One thing I love about shows like The Great British Sewing Bee is the random bits of specialist knowledge you can cut off and collect like fabric samples. With its flashier big sister show Bake Off it was the correct cooling time for a brandy snap or the grilling of a Schichttorte cake — here’s it’s the line of a hem or pattern-matching on a seam.
The placket reduces biker contestant Liz to tears in this week’s sportswear-themed episode four. Contestants are tasked with making a traditional rugby shirt, the trickiest part of which are the “layers of engineering” around the button and collar which give the shirt its structure.
Nerves get the better of Liz. She finds menswear “terrifying”. Her collar goes on upside-down, her button doesn’t do up. She runs out of time and the stitching gets messy.
Jewellery designer Nicole, meanwhile, is bossing it. After a shaky first episode where she picked a fiendishly stretchy metallic fabric for a wrap skirt (rookie error, Nicole!), her growing precision and confidence make her the one to beat.
She also makes clothes I actually want to wear, which seems oddly low priority for a show that’s all about making things people wear.
And perhaps it’s just a Clap For Carers crush, but I’m also rooting for Yorkshire paramedic Ali, even if her choice of fabrics on the third tennis outfit challenge (pink leopard and orange florals) made my eyes water. She and fellow contestant Clare, a lung consultant, probably aren’t getting much time on their sewing machines right now.
Television shows in 2020
This is a lovely warm apple crumble of a show. Even the judging from tailor Patrick Grant (a WI crush if ever I saw one) and Central Saint Martins lecturer Esme Young is gentle.
“Oh the zip’s inside out,” Grant observed in a previous episode while politely examining a total dog’s dinner of a skirt, “the zip must deliberately be inside out.” No steely Paul Hollywood stares here.
Meanwhile, host Joe Lycett keeps the energy up with a one-man show of double entendres straight out of Mel and Sue’s playbook. “I met a rugby player once,” he says, “scored a conversion” (groan).
The Great British Sewing Bee might fall short of Bake Off’s old ratings-busting appeal — perhaps because there’s less sensory delight to be had in watching a running stitch than the dribble of icing on a fondant — but it’s the soothing television we all need right now. I’m dangerously close to ordering a sewing machine myself.
The Great British Sewing Bee is on BBC One at 9pm
