The Golden Shears

2011 Golden Shears winner Yingmei Quan and her winning garment

The Company supports the tailors of the future with the bi-annual Golden Shears Contest. Tailoring students and apprentices from throughout the country vie for the coveted Golden Shears awards, with prizes totalling £4,500.

Each entrant makes a tailored outfit for first stage judging by top bespoke tailors. Marks are awarded for technical skill – design, cutting and tailoring.

The 25 entrants with the highest marks go forward to the gala catwalk show at Merchant Taylors’ Hall. At this prestigious event finalists’ garments are shown by professional catwalk models to an audience from the City, fashion, tailoring and education worlds. A panel of five VIP judges mark the garments for style.

The Golden Shears and £2000 are awarded to the entrant with the highest total of marks in both stages of the competition. The runner-up receives Silver Shears and £1500, and a ‘Rising Star’ wins Silver Shears and £1000.

Winning Garments - Silver Shears, Golden Shears and Rising Star Award

In the mid 1970's, during Sir Peter Studd's Mastership, the Company decided to rekindle the connection with its original craft trade through the Federation of Merchant Tailors. Liverymen and Past Federation Presidents, Angus Cundey and Robert Bright (who together with Michael Skinner in the late 1980s were the first Master Tailors for several hundred years to become Free of the Company), played prominent parts in launching a training related competition.

The Company presented the Golden Shears trophy for the competition. The trophy is a pair of traditional cutting shears mounted on mahogany – the traditional shears as used by cutters and tailors and the mahogany representing the boards on which they worked. The Golden Shears were awarded to the tailor whose clothes, using non-professional models (often themselves) were judges for fit, style and suitability to wearer as well as the skills of cutting and tailoring.