A strong collection of printed & stitched linens by Abby Bury
Herefords Textile Design BA(hons) course has become outstanding over recent years with a talented and committed group of tutors; the excellent degree show is one of the events I really look forward to. So I was delighted when Tinsmiths was asked to provide a ‘Real World Brief’ for the level 5 students.
The students were set a brief to design a small collection of fabrics suitable for the Tinsmiths brand and they had 6 weeks to work on this project (alongside a marketing project and some work placements – who ever said students don’t work hard!). The first part of their brief required them to find out about Tinsmiths; research the designers and fabric companies whose cloth we sell, the type of fabrics that we like and try to identify a ‘house style’. They then had to work through design ideas; some identifying our natural fabric theme worked from a starting point of the ‘natural world’ and others spotted our love of Central Asian and folk textiles and so drew on historical references like tapestries and folk designs.
The final part of the project required each student to present their collection to me in concise 10 minute presentation which covered the research, design development and finished pieces.
We have not been involved in a project like this before but what a treat it was! The Level 5 group, which includes students specialising in weave and print, although not large, are all committed, hard working and completely engaged with their work.
I was so impressed by the quality of the responses, each student had either a clear and coherent overall idea for a collection or one or two strong individual designs and on the whole they all seemed to have almost too many ideas for the time allowed. What a pleasure and well done all of you – I can’t wait to see what you do in your final year!
A subtle collection of wool mix weaves by Alice Noble
Soft ombre weaves by Sadie French
A monochrome collection by Jess Evans based on observational drawing.
With depth and subtlety Becky Chambers-Perola’s work is based on Russian folk motifs.