THE EMBROIDERY HOUSE BEHIND THE BELL

Hand & Lock is down a side street and you have to knock to get in.

Not in an unwelcoming way — there's a bell, you press it, someone lets you in. But it does mean you have to decide to go in, standing on the step, rather than drifting through a door because it happened to be open. I stood there for a second working out whether I was allowed.

You are. Go in.

WHO THEY ARE

The company traces back to 1767, when a Huguenot refugee called M. Hand arrived in London and started making gold lace for military tailors. That business ran for over two hundred years. In 1898 a separate embroidery house was set up by C.E. Phipps, later taken over by one of his embroiderers, Stanley Lock, and renamed S. Lock Ltd. The two merged in 2001 to become Hand & Lock.

Between them they have embroidered for Dior, Burberry and various celebrities  They also embroidered 139 meters of tulle that made up Princess Diana's wedding veil.They hold a Royal Warrant as Embroiderers and Suppliers of Military Accoutrements, and they made ceremonial pieces for King Charles III's coronation.

So: not a haberdashery. An embroidery house that also sells you things.

WHAT'S IT LIKE INSIDE

Small. Much smaller than the history suggests it should be.

It's calm in there, which I wasn't expecting from somewhere in central London on a weekday. Quiet enough that you lower your voice slightly without deciding to.

The thing that got me is the back. There's a workroom behind the shop and you can see people sewing in it. Actual embroiderers, working, while you stand there looking at kits. I wanted to walk in and watch and obviously did not, because you can't just wander into someone's workroom. I think they do open days — I'm going to find out, because I'd like to see that properly.

The woman who helped me was patient about kits and pricing and did not make me feel like I was wasting her time, which given what's going on in the back room she'd have been entitled to.

WHAT I BOUGHT 

The Wild Bouquet Kit, from their Spring/Summer 2026 collection. £60.

It comes in a sealed silver tin with the crest embossed on the lid — H and L either side of a crown, since 1767 underneath. I have not opened it. I'm slightly precious about it and I want to film it properly when I do.

What's inside, per their description: a printed instruction booklet, wax, needles, the base fabric with the design already printed on it, threads and bullions. The panel is 30x30cm and the finished embroidery is about 145 x 110mm — a bouquet with a poppy, a bluebell, a butterfly and a little tied ribbon at the base.

And here's the part I didn't fully register in the shop: it's goldwork. Not just surface embroidery. The technique list is threadwork, French knots, cutwork, chipping, essing, padding, loops and pearl purl.

I have done almost none of that. Chipping and essing are goldwork terms — cutting metal purl into tiny pieces and stitching them down like beads, and laying metal thread in an S-shape. Pearl purl is a coiled wire you couch along an outline so it reads like a row of tiny beads. It's a completely different discipline to the embroidery I've done before, and I bought it slightly on instinct.

Which is fine. That's how I've learned most things.

At £60 it's not a cheap kit, and I'd think about that differently if it were plain surface embroidery. But goldwork materials are expensive on their own — the metal threads and purls aren't things you casually accumulate — and you're also buying the design and the instructions from a house that's been doing this since 1767. I'd have spent more than that assembling it badly myself.

WHY THIS ONE

They embroidered for Dior. I'm going back to London at the end of summer for a Dior Bar Jacket course in Folkestone, which I've wanted to do for a while now.

That wasn't a plan. I noticed it afterwards, standing in a shop holding a tin, and it's the sort of coincidence I'm happy to lean into.

If YOU ARE GOING

Ring the bell. That's the whole barrier and it isn't one.

Look at the kits even if you're not buying — they're a good way to see what the house actually does, and the range goes from beginner threadwork up to proper goldwork.

And if the workroom's visible, look. It's the best thing in there and it isn't for sale.

Hand & Lock
86 Margaret Street, London
The tin is still sealed. Reel coming when I open it.