Twenty-four talented textile designers from across the UK prepared to showcase their work at the TexSelect London Preview this July. Highly innovative design work and mesmerizing colour and pattern, all mingled with an infectious creative energy. Among the designers displaying their talents were Jessye Boulton and Hayley Chapman, whose work in knit and print impressed the judges. These included Selvedge founder/editor Polly Leonard.
Jessye Boulton is a graduate from Winchester School of Art. She draws on ideas relating to the natural landscape in her knitwear. For TexSelect 2018, Boulton presented her ‘We Are Shaped’ menswear collection. The collection explores knitwear in relation to embodied experiences; ones linked through environmental/bodily interactions. She produced knitted garments and textiles designed to reflect personal lived and felt experiences. Featuring winding, knotting, weaving, stringing and layering techniques, Boulton's pieces were realised as compound knitted textiles then manipulated into garment form. She was shortlisted for the TexSelect Fashion Prize.
Also catching the judges' eye was work by Hayley Chapman, a student of the Colchester School of Art. She was selected for the AVACadCam training award because of her impressive print designs. Her collection concentrated on the nostalgia of storytelling and emulating memories of her grandmother's household. Her childhood memories also inspired her hand-painted illustrations and digital designs. Chapman's prints included garden florals, potting shed geometrics and ceramic household treasures, all linking to places she explored when as a child. Uniting these themes has created a juxtaposition of the indoors and outdoors in an adventurous colour palette inspired by ceramics within museums and local gardens. This presents contrasting prints for the use of homeware, accessories and fashion.
TexSelect’s aim is to select, mentor and promote the UK’s most talented newly graduated textile designers, providing an opportunity for realistic development, and a vital bridge between higher education and the real, commercial world. Find out more about this year's designers at www.texselect.org.uk.
www.artsthread.com/profile/hayleychapman
Blog post by Jessica Edney