Furloughed Sheffield mum starts making her own dresses in lockdown - and they've transformed her wardrobe

When everybody else seems to be dressing down, a Sheffield mum is all dressed up even when there are very few places to go.

Gina Shiel Taylor has rediscovered her passion for fashion and is busy creating the clothes she wants during the long hours of furlough at her home in Darnall.

Gina has created a dozen dresses in the latest lockdown alone.

She said: "Because I’m on furlough I’ve got nothing else to do, so I’ve been making clothes that I want to wear because I can’t find anything to buy any more.

"I’ve always been able to do it anyway since I was a teenager, but I stopped doing it decades ago because I was buying my own stuff because it was easier.”

"I started again a couple of years ago when there seemed to be less an less items around and things that I couldn’t afford.

Gina put her skills to good use during first wave of the pandemic, joining the unsung heroes making PPE from home for the NHS. Now she is concentrating on building up her wardrobe as the country looks forward to restrictions easing.

“I started to replicate things I would like to wear and since lockdown I’ve made a heck of a lot more dresses. Recently I made four in a week.

" My mum’s an upholstress. I’ve been brought up around machines and making clothes is something I’ve started to do again. My wardrobe now is probably 80 per cent my stuff that I’ve made over the past year.”

Gina, 50 is currently furloughed from Stitch Express on Chapel Walk which specialises in clothing alterations and curtain alterations and is closed due to Covid regulations.

“We have a lot of good customers But because tailors aren’t allowed to operate during lockdown they are not allowed in there.

"A lot of our customers were frightened and they weren’t going to come out until they had the vaccine. It’s been quite hard.

"With all the shops shutting down that’s going to affect us a lot as a tailors – what is there to come into town for?”