As I mentioned before I’ve been really keen to start developing the samples I’ve been working on into more substantial garments.
First and foremost, I always always think about the technique and appeal of the fabric I’m designing before I consider it in the context of an actual piece of clothing, and for this reason I mainly think of myself as a Textile designer rather than a Fashion girl. That being said, I think it’s really important that I show that I can visualise my work successfully and can see my designs as they’re intended to be worn. Producing actual wearable pieces gets me more excited about what I’m doing too, so with that in mind I’ve had a wee idea to experiment with a few simple little bodycon skirts. Their shape means that I should be able to produce them without the aid of the linker etc, and their straight and simple lines should keep the emphasis on my heavily techniqued based designs.
Just wanted to write a quick little post to mention the one and only Mr Fox, yarn supplier extraordinaire, and my personal saviour when it comes to all things knit related!
Bury based Mr fox owns Fairfield Yarns, an absolute Alladins cave of every kind of yarn you could be looking for, with a somewhat bizarre theme of vintage railway memorabilia dotted around alongside…!
I Studied Textile Design at the Glasgow School of Art, specialising in knitwear after my first year. While some Textiles and Fashion Design students pass there designs onto manufacturers to produce, GSA placed alot of emphasis on us being highly trained at the manual production aspect of out specialisms as well as the design process. Initially we were trained to machine knit on domestic Brother machines; the chunkier effect they produce means you can see the stitches really clearly and get a good grasp of all the different techniques. I was always desperate to get onto the more fiddly intricate stuff, but starting out like this really helped me learn the basic principles of how to manipulate stitches and achieve effects that could be applied when we moved onto using the lovely fine industrial machines later on.
A couple of photos of very early work…!