The painter-turned-clothing designer Carole Waller will unveil a new line of clothing at Bath's One Two Five gallery next month. Titled "Stone and Thread", this collection is inspired by the 250 year anniversary of the building Royal Crescent in Bath. Waller has stayed true to her signature painterly style by creating ensembles full of vivid colours and exuberant patterns. Honing in on Royal Crescent's Palladian style of architecture, many of the clothes in her new collection feature abstracted illustrations of the very orderly and symmetrical decorative details found in the nooks and crannies of Bath's Grade 1 listed building, contrasted of course with a riot of free-flowing colours and gestures typical of Waller's practice.
Known as "wearable art", Waller's creations are made possible by way of her attuned skill of painting directly onto silk - the "unprimed canvas" as Waller calls it herself. Fibre reactive dyes are a key component to her work as they are extremely colourfast and lightfast. Derived from seaweed and thickened with sodium alginate, Waller uses these dyes just as she would oil paints on a canvas. Most of her mark making is made using paint brushes, while some of the images arrive on the cloth through placement screen-printing. Once the design is in place, it's then steamed to set the dyes into the material, and washed before being cut out and constructed by a local dressmaker.
Sidestepping only slightly from her prevailing methods for her new collection, Waller cites lace as one of the key inspirations to this latest project. Embracing complexity, craft and femininity, lace accompanies silk along with fine wool gauze to create a range of scarves, shawls, shirts, jackets along with signature coats and dresses. The collection arrives at One Two Five gallery on March 9th, where it will be launched with a drinks reception open to the public form 6pm - 8pm.
www.onetwofivegallery.co.uk
www.carolewaller.co.uk
