sweetgeorgia

From wallace+sewell to Textile Futures

Travelling to London has kept my interest partly because their designers, artists and craftsmen are so well supported and encouraged by the local councils that they appear to be able to innovate and create more. So for me, it’s not just yarn tourism… it’s the search for signs of future growth and the pushing forward of an entire textile and craft industry. I’m looking for something more than just the mechanical workings of a traditional hand loom or traditional fair isle designs updated in contemporary colours. I don’t know what it is, but I’m looking.

On the way, I get distracted by shiny, pretty things and some of the most vibrantly coloured, interesting and luxurious woven items I have found in London are designed by Wallace+Sewell, a pair of weavers who graduated from the Royal College of Art almost twenty years ago.

Located at the corner of Amwell and Lloyd Baker Streets just south of the Angel tube stop, the shop is seriously tiny, but stacked from floor to ceiling with silk, cashmere and wool blankets and scarves. Last time I visited, they had a “pillow” event, so the centre of the shop was piled high with pillows made from their woven designs in all different colours and textures. This time, I think the silk organza scarves were new… and these plasticized fabrics too. This was some of the most intriguing work I saw… very contemporary and very topical. Selvedges from handwoven fabric was compressed with vinyl plastic in order to create a new “fabric” which was then made into handbags.

I love love loved these. Scraps of woven silk fabric laid in quite a thick chunk of plastic making some really interesting bracelets, earrings and brooches. Just some very inventive ways of using up the little bits of extra fabric.

And of course, perfectly sheer and delicately coloured woven silk organza scarves. Not entirely innovative, but still beautiful to see and touch.

Where else in the world is really, truely new textile design and innovation happening? And I don’t mean textile art. I mean functional textile design for use in fashion or interiors. Emphasis on functional. Where do we stop just making pretty things and start making things that improve people’s lives in tangible ways? For a while now, I have been following the work and research being done at Central St. Martin’s in their MA Design for Textile Futures, mainly because I was interested in possibly studying there (but can you say “hello, life long student loan debt”?), but also because there is no program like it anywhere. Where else do students create interactive wallpaper, light-reactive window shades, and “architectural textiles for localised urban food production and environmental monitoring”. I don’t even know what that means. But when you pair creative and innovative textile designers with Nobel prize-winning scientists… well, we can just be optimistic that our future lives will be benefitted by their new discoveries.

Spring in London

I’m back to loitering in London again. This time, staying at Jen’s flat near the Angel tube stop… making it painfully easy to get to the lovely little Loop yarn shop. Located on Cross Street, it’s a tiny shop tucked into a corner with nothing but a small pink sandwich board outside. 

There’s a nice selection of Louisa Harding, Debbie Bliss, Alchemy, Blue Sky Alpacas and Be Sweet yarns here. But my lovely score was a copy of Kim Hargreaves’ book, “Heartfelt: The Dark House Collection“. She’s published all her solo designs … for sale … without kits! It’s like I’ve been living in a hole or something. Anyhow, I like it.

Just across the street from Loop is Tribe… a gallery full of handwoven rugs from all over the world. They were closed today, so I could only paw at the window.

On this trip round, I’m mostly living off of a box of cereal, one gigantic cold pizza from La Forchetta, and a whole lot of fruit… but yesterday, I met up with a girlfriend who took me for afternoon tea near London Bridge. The shop was SO precious… painted a pale frosty pink with tea cups suspended from the ceiling with thumbtacks! Ingenious space saving idea. I sat directly underneath the tea cup constellation and enjoyed my earl grey and lemon cake. Thank you, Charlotte.

The London Design Festival

In a couple weeks, I’m headed back to London for the annual London Design Festival and Lomographic World Congress 2007. I’m so excited about this my brain is on the verge of exploding… already. Just wait ’til I get there. Want some visual overload? Visit http://www.lomography.com

Inspi(red)*

Now that we’re pretty much exactly halfway through 2007 now, tell me, what’s the most inspiring thing you’ve seen or experienced in the past six months?

Maybe it’s because today is my loom’s one-year anniversary, I’m feeling all sentimental and wondering what I’ve been doing all year and what I’ll be doing on this day next year. Between now and next June, I’ll be attending a month of lectures and workshops at Maiwa’s symposium. So far, I’ve registered for Michelle Wipplinger’s Colour Institute II, Dabu Mud Printing, Ajrakh Blockprinting (including the masterclass) and the Working Traveller. I wonder if Charllotte will let me just pay rent and live at Maiwa East for the month of October… the place is already furnished.

Charllotte is also looking at arranging a Maiwa trip to India in February 2008 and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to participate in that. They’ll be travelling to a number of different villages where the dyeing and textiles are made for Maiwa. I’m not sure how long the trip is for, but if it’s only a couple weeks, I may choose to stay a few weeks longer on my own. Who knows.

Also, I’ve been looking at the Kawashima Textile School in Kyoto and possibly spending some time there weaving, dyeing and studying. This is the same school that Chisako Hisamatsu attended to get a more in-depth education in Kasuri (an ikat technique). You could live, weave, eat, sleep, and dye there for anywhere from a few days to a few years. Dreamy. Possible? Impossible? Who knows.

Where else can I go? Indonesia? Thailand? Sweden? Denmark? Hmm… My desire to live someplace warmer (seriously, I’m sitting next to my heater and it’s nearly JULY) has me thinking about the textile/fashion program at CCAC in California too (although San Francisco is not much warmer than Vancouver, bleh). Hmm…

My time in London was WAY too short and I’ll have to find my way back somehow. I didn’t, unfortunately, get to meet up with Amelia and her friends and would love to do that next time. There was a knitting exhibition at South Wimbledon that I missed because I was running around quite a bit (even though I was at Wimbledon for a couple days, grr) and of course the one day I picked to visit the V&A is the one day the textiles room was closed. What did I see…

The “New York Fashion Now” exhibition at the V&A. The DOBAG rug woven for the British Museum. Some of Preeti Gilani’s textile work… hand-dyed silk and Jacquard weaving. The room full of massive Mark Rothko paintings at the Tate Modern (I went to see this TWICE, I loved it so much). Helio Oiticica’s Body of Colour exhibition at the Tate Modern as well. And something I wish I had seen for real:

Ptolemy Mann completely floors me. I’m absolutely in love with her work. What are you absolutely in love with these days? What inspires you now?

Okay, never thought I’d name a post after a GAP product, but hey, it’s all good. One of the only things I bought in London was a product Red t-shirt… african cotton made in Lesotho. It would make Jen proud.