New Designers

Well what a week New Designers was! Such excitement but so exhausting!

The Monday and Tuesday were spent setting up our stand. The tutors had a vague plan of who’s work would be where and we got started. The plan was to hang one or two of my larger fabrics with them flowing onto plinths and then have the remainder of the fabrics folded on the plinths.

I tried one arrangement and left it to think about overnight.

On the Tuesday I came back to it and after a discussion with my tutor, we decided it was not right. She suggested having my fabrics folded as this would show them off more for their intended use: interiors.

The Wednesday was all about judging, press, awards, and celebrating! Laura Davenport from the Textile Design course at Huddersfield won an award, the ‘New Designers Wilkinson Award for Commercial Surface Design’. We were all so happy for her! The award meant it brought lots of people to our stand and so perhaps helped the rest of us gain more interest? Who knows but it was all wonderfully exciting.



Laura receiving her award



The whole New Designers event was sponsored by Absolut vodka, so yummy drinks for us on awards night!

After New Designers had closed there was an after party at a local bar for all exhibitors. We popped along for a few drinks and a dance after a quick bite to eat.

Getting the tube home again.
(L-R: Sophie, Claire, Laura, Melody, Khadijah)

Thursday was the first main day in terms of visitors. This is when New Designers opened to the public. Friday was busy too with employers, press and a lot of school groups. Saturday was the quietest with less press/employers around.

I made some excellent contacts and received some wonderful feedback which I found very encouraging. I have followed up all my contacts today so fingers crossed I hear from them soon! Wish me luck!

I got a 2:1!!!!

It was results day on Tuesday and I have officially graduated with a 2:1 BA Hons in Textile Crafts!!!!

For my final major project, I got a first too! Absolutely over the moon!

Press Pack

I collected my press pack from the printers today all ready for New Designers next week. It looks great! I am so happy with it. Now let’s just hope the press want it and someone does a feature on me.

Opening night!

The VIP opening of the degree show was held on Friday 17^th. It was such a lovely evening, showing off our hard work and celebrating with family and friends. Everyone got dressed up for the event and we all had a wonderful evening (even if our feet were dying by the end of it all!!!)

Me & Nicola

Me & Cat

Granny came to see my exhibition :)

Granny having an inspection of my work

I have a place at New Designers!!!

I am incredibly lucky to have been selected to take my degree show collection down to part 1 of New Designers. I could not believe it. I was desperate to get a place and worked so hard in the hope I might get a place, you cannot imagine how excited I was when I found out!

So there I shall be, 30^th June - 2^nd July on stand T4 with the University of Huddersfield. For information on tickets follow the link below.

New Designers Tickets



Exhibition!

Putting up the exhibition was a mammoth task and far more tricky than I could have imagined. I went in with an idea of how to display my work; I wanted it suspended from the ceiling, hanging away from the wall, with pieces overlapping each other.

It ended up suspended but on an angle so the piece were parallel to one another but coming away from the wall diagonally into the room.

I’m really happy with my exhibition. I feel it shows my fabrics off wonderfully and bringing them in together really emphasises that they are a collection.

Exhibition space with supporting work

Final Collection, Photo shoots and Contextualising

As my work can be seen in a number of contexts, after a discussion with my tutor it was decided that it would be good to create a number of visualisations to show which context my fabric collection could fit into.

I’d already thought that a photo shoot would be a good idea, taking my finished fabrics back to the woods where the inspiration came from.  Before-hand, I went to check out some locations, looking for trees with low enough branches to drape fabrics from and areas of dappled sunlight.

I decided that if I was able to get one, a model would be an excellent idea to show how my fabrics could be used for fashion rather than doing this as a visualisation.

The whole photo shoot experience was so much fun! I got some really great shots and really enjoyed the styling process. Maybe I’ve found a new direction?!

Visualisation of Intended use: Fabric wall feature

Visualisation: Alternative interiors use.

Visualisation: Alternative interiors use.