THE LANGUAGE OF SMOCKING: AN INTERVIEW WITH LAUREN MACDONALD

Image courtesy of Lauren MacDonald of Working Cloth

Today we hear from Lauren MacDonald, a multidisciplinary designer, writer, and the founder of textiles studio, Working Cloth. Her approach and aesthetic have been tempered through academic studies in Material Culture and Textile Science, vocational experience in the fashion industry, and an ongoing obsession with materiality, form, and function. Her practice is focussed on traditional textile handcrafts and spans interaction design, installation, sculpture and stitched form. Her first book In Pursuit of Color: From fungi to fossil fuels: uncovering the origins of the world's most famous dyes will be out in November 2022.

Among Lauren's textile practices, she creates hand-smocked shirts, using smocking's ability to provide stretch, shape and decorative details using high-quality linen fabrics. This autumn, Lauren will be running a hand-smocked shirt online workshop for Selvedge to share her practice and encourage us hand-make our own linen shirts.

What drew you to smocking?
I was drawn to smocking for the same reason I was originally drawn to quilt making, because the purpose of the stitching is at once utilitarian and decorative. The running stitches that hold the layers of a quilt together add durability and warmth, while smocking stitches add elasticity and shape a garment. Both are relatively simple techniques, but mastery requires practice, and I’m drawn to the quiet solitude of slowly stitching and reflection that comes with it.

Image courtesy of Lauren MacDonald of Working Cloth

What makes your craft of smocking unique?
I think of the handwork I do as a kind of language. Sometimes this is literal (like embroidering someone’s name into the corner of a quilt) but more often it's abstract: trying to communicate thoughts and narratives with colour, pattern, and texture, putting in fabrics with their own stories, and taking the time to make something that the hand of the maker is very evident in. I think craftspeople always leave a little of themselves in the objects that they make, and I carry around the romantic idea that someone might look at something I’ve done and recognise a bit of themselves in those objects too.

There is so much heritage in the work that I do that I feel like I am adding my own small voice into a global history of textiles and work, and there is something immensely comforting and safe about being connected to many skilled women and their beautiful work that has existed over the millennia.

Image courtesy of Lauren MacDonald of Working Cloth

I try and make objects that feel simple, even if the processes involved in making them are complicated. I spend a lot of time and effort trying to make things that have a softness and that feel like they might have always existed (or at the very least, don’t feel driven by a particular trend). With quilts, this often comes across through materials, colour palette and pattern choice. With smocking, I think it’s about choosing a single element to focus on; be it the cuffs, or the neckline, or a placket and using repetitive stitching to manipulate the fabric into geometry.

Lauren MacDonald will be running a workshop on Saturday 19 & Sunday 20 November 2022 making a hand-smocked shirt where Lauren will guide you through constructing your own shirt using hand-smocked details. Find out more about the workshop HERE.