Graduate fashion week already seems an absolute lifetime ago now, so trying to write this post now is slightly harder than I thought it would be, and so I don't waffle on too much I'm just going to write about a couple of collections that mean quite a lot to me...
Starting with my own... to be honest it was all a little bit of a blur, and I spent the majority of the Bath Spa/Northampton show feeling like I was going to throw up, so I was incredibly relieved that none of my nylon tubes shed on the catwalk (as we all dramatically envisioned), no one tripped over the jellyfish and died (although to be honest if she'd fallen in that I'm pretty certain she'd just bounce straight back up), it generally everything went pretty smoothly.
As lovely as some of the press releases have been on my work, I still look at it and criticise every little detail that I know could have been better. What's most depressing though is there's still so much more I want to learn and so much more I want to try out, buutt I guess that's what an MA is for!
The main inspiration for my collection came from a trip to Japan last summer where I spent about three weeks pretty much falling in love with all their modern architecture. I came back home and just spent weeks drawing from all the imagery I'd taken (and wishing I was still there) and my colour palette of blues and soft greys just kind of evolved from all my drawings, paintings ad colour swatches. My actual final pieces came from me modelling directly onto the stand with shit loads of nylon tubular crin- lengths knitted with broomsticks to create oversized jumpers, folded into hundreds of loops and tied into oversized bunches to create "jellyfish" like structures.
There are quite a few details that couldn't really be picked up on the catwalk, one of the being the little hand-knitted and hand-dyed squares stitched in a gradient onto blue stretch net, and the devore skirts (one of which took about two months to scrub out with a tiny toothbrush).. I could probably talk about my work for the rest of life, but I'd bore the shit out of you all, so I talk a little bit about two other textile collections that really stand out for me...
The first is by Emma Parker. I seriously spent the majority of this year just staring at her work thinking "oh my God this is incredible, why the hell isn't this my collection?!" Then looking back at my own work and wanting to spit on it in dusgust. But seriously, I don't think I've ever met anyone who's as clever as she is in the way she manipulates and experiments with every media she uses. She used fur in the majority of her collection, but in ways I'd never seen before. It was so exciting to come into the studio every morning to see yet another new and amazing creation in her work space. Her use of devore was something that I really loved as well as again, it was used in a way that not many people had thought possible...
I'm not gonna lie, her collection was probably my favourite out of our year group (and quite possibly the whole of GFW), so I feel pretty privileged to have been there watching it grow and evolve into this amazing creation below...
Secondly is Kiran Bassan's collection.
Her collection is quite literally an exact reflection of her personality- bright, vibrant, fun and just generally pretty damn amazing!
And as many of you are probably already aware it was her beautifully layered hand-printed pieces that bagged her the Zandra Rhodes Textile award! I can't even begin to describe the painstakingly long hours she spent hand printing metre upon metre of jersey, silk and organza, (then waiting for each layer to dry before doing it all over again), not to mention the time she spent shredding her over-sized kimono type pieces...
It got to the point where we were quite literally crying whilst pinning fabric onto the backing cloth (seriously, if I never had to pin again I'd be the happiest person on the planet)!
I'm sure she'll agree though that every painful minute spent slaving away in the print room definitely worth it! Her work is absolutely beautiful and I am proud to say I was the first ever person to try on that orange jacket at the front! (Hellll yea)!
I'm so immensely proud of everyone, and although I only mentioned a couple of people in this post I have to say that I loved every single one of the collections we showed this year, and I feel so privileged to have worked alongside so many talented and creative designers.
I can safely say I wouldn't be the person I am, and my work wouldn't be what it is now without the support and encouragement of everyone in my year, in fact I can't actually imagine how I'm going to get by without them....
Oh God!
Goooodnight!
