Bold and Bright Blocks and Lines

As I've now got the bit between my teeth to crack on with my final collection, my blog posts might become a little less frequent for the time being. My days will most likely to be spent within the creative confines of the RCA, but never fear, more colourful loveliness is always just around the corner...

This is a quick collection I started to design before the summer, inspired by the bold graphic paintings of Peter Halley. I've got the idea exactly in my mind about how to knit the fabrics for these garments so fingers crossed they will be available to buy one day in the future!

Peter Halley Artworks 

Peter Halley Artworks

Colours!

Prettyful sparkles!

Oooohh, aaaahh.... I got this little parcel from the very generous people at Swarovski today and I'm so excited I had to share it with you all! How I end up using them will all be revealed at the degree show in July, but for now use your imagination and look at the fashion drawings in the post below about my work in progress.....

Work In Progress...

Here is a taster of what I have been working on before Christmas and am currently showing in the RCA Work In Progress exhibition. On display at the Kensington campus until January 18th. There's some fabulous work on show so if you're interested in Textiles and Fashion I thoroughly recommend you pop along!

Touch

Going along with my current excitement at having just booked flights to Florence for Pitti Filati (shopping for stuff to knit with at a dedicated yarn event to all you non knitters), I thought I would post the first of 2 collections of work I did for the fair in my first year at the RCA. It was highly experimental, I covered my fabrics with paint and silicone and sequins and cocoa powder, as you do.
  The concept was all about the human senses, I was looking at 'touch' and had to emulate imagery given to me which fell under 2 headings (I didn't come up with these) -

Rock Climbing,

and Vice Cream.

So I tried to knit rocks, ropes, and sporty looking bits and then selected which would construct the final length - I should say the brief was to create a 150cm length of fabric which would then get chopped up and turned into crazy little garments to go on mini mannequins at Pitti.

The final length for Rock Climbing-

I did the same for the vice cream group too and I then had to knit up 2 lengths for this particular heading.

 The Vice Cream results-

Draw draw draw

If anyone else studied their art foundation at Chelsea, (like myself) you will be aware that they are big on drawing. If I recall correctly my first few weeks there were spent continuously exploring ways of mark making and drawing different qualities of line. Whilst packing this weekend to travel back to London for the start of the new term (and desperately procrastinating the task in hand...), I had a flick through some of my old sketchbooks.

 This is a selection of pages from one of my early foundation projects. I had to make a 'miniature world' which was a collection of small electrical components stuck into a tiny chest of drawers. Yes those pesky components crop up a fair few times in my design work! Anyway from this still life I did lots of delicate little drawings on a variety of constructed and collaged papers which finally informed a number of print ideas. I was exploring mono-printing different textures, layered with cut out papers relating to my initial drawings. 

  I felt it to be an appropriate post as the concept I am currently working on is entitled 'the travelling line', and much of this imagery fits the idea nicely!

Umbro 2011

Around March 2011, I attended a design briefing by Umbro, which was about taking inspiration from, and re-inventing 4 of their iconic menswear pieces. The idea of designing menswear initially sent me running for the hills (not a field I'd even contemplated exploring before), however after a shaky start working with the most boring colour palette I'd ever come up with, (I'm not featuring that bit), I decided to break all the rules by thinking football loving men would wear purple and got completely sucked into the project, resulting in my designs being chosen for the winning collection.

  I took my inspiration from the Umbro flicker archive of football shirts, mainly the huge variety of colours and directions of stripes found on the shirts. Following this, I worked on a concept of designing scarves which could sit on top of a football strip for fans to wear when attending a match. I ended up making a final piece which was an interpretation of a jacket lapel, enabling a simple t-shirt to be worn underneath which would then look far smarter and more exciting with the addition of the scarf.

  The final collection was a collaboration between Footwear, Menswear, Textile and Vehicle design students from the RCA. As a team we exhibited our pieces in an exhibition alongside the RCA Fashion Shows 2011 in our own Umbro locker room - see below!

A Post Apocalyptic World

Imagine a world, many years from now, where birds have lost the ability to fly and rely on Victorian flying contraptions in order to navigate the skies as they once did... 

then give a knitter some wool, metal springs, electrical wire and tell her to translate this concept into fabric...

and finally, turn the fabrics into a collection of knitted accessories. The results of which are a capelet / shoulder / neck piece, a decorative cuff and an arm-warmer.