Every one unique

*I just wanted to say we’ve received the banners and they’re beautiful. Thank you very much for working on such a tight time scale for us and producing them so nicely, it’s much appreciated.  I look forward to working with you again in the future.

A Vexillum is a flag-like object suspended from a horizontal crossbar; the Ancient Roman army used it as its military standard and a Gonfalon (from the early Italian confalone) is a type of heraldic flag or banner, often pointed, swallow-tailed, or with several streamers, and suspended from a crossbar in an identical manner to the ancient Roman vexillum.

The common derivative for gonfalon and vexillum is a 'medieval banner'.

Stitched gonfalons

Gonfalons come in all shapes and sizes AND all possible variations of fabrics.  We recommend mixing it up design wise and using matt and shiny taffetas, satin silks, linens, drill cotton, velvets and everything needed to make a sumptuous impression. Here are just a few examples of recent creations....

Printed gonfalons

And not forgetting the fully printed gonfalon option.  This image shows a lined gonfalon, fully printed with detail on red cotton drill, finished with tab tops and a weighted tip.

Here is another example of a printed gonfalon with tab tops, lined and edged with bullion piping (apologies for the creases!):

Half and Half gonfalon banners (print and overstitch)

We were commissioned to produce seven gonfalon banners for a Gild located across the USA.  Here we show the agreed artwork and some images of the final product of just one of the designs. You will see that the ground of cotton linen has been printed and then overstitched with taffetta and backed detail.  These banners were fully lined with custom printed green border detail fabric and finished with four tab tops, fringe to the bottom of the banner and fully lined in the same off-white cotton linen fabric. 

Another example of our half and half method can be seen on the flag detail below, a custom order from the South Wales Police Commissioner.

School banners, Vexillum Gonfalon for Ysgol Dewi Sant, St David's, Pembrokeshire

The Head Teacher of Ysgol Dewi Sant in St David's Pembrokeshire commissioned us to realise the creation of school and house banners for the beginning of the academic year September 2018. 

Each banner measured 5x3ft and constructed in portrait style in the shape of a shield, fully interlined and backed with tab tops to hang the banner from the custom made pole and stand, and fully weighted to ensure the correct drape of fabric.

These vexillae were made using MOD spec woven polyester - this fabric is dense in colour and lightweight.  It is unlikely to fade over time and is fully machine washable without colour run. 

We manually trace all the detail to fabric then carefully applique the detail before trimming and finishing each piece by hand - this is the traditional way to make flags - from projecting the image to scale on a wall, tracing it to paper, then on a lightbox to fabric, then pinning the fabric sandwich (and in the case of the School coat of arms 17 layers of fabric), applique sewing, trimming back - repeated until the image is revealed with no margin for error.

*Thank you so much for helping to make our special day extra special. The banners looked awesome in the Cathedral yesterday. David Haynes, Head Teacher, Ysgol Dewi Sant