Fabrics of the City till 31st July at The Cass, London

From one common source - the rich heritage of the Huguenots silk weavers, 14 designers from East London have been inspired to design and craft unique materials and techniques to demonstrate their creativity and talent in a myriad of ways.  

Works produced with a 3D Printer are meticulously pieced together to form unique 'fabrics' by Jane Bowler.
All photos are by Lucia Carpio for My Fashion Connect.

The result is an exhibition called Fabric of the City currently being held at The Cass, London Metropolitan University in Whitechapel (a stone's throw from Spitalfields and Brick Lane).  The designers were invited to participate in this unique project by Cass lecturer and curator, Gina Pierce, whose own rug design which was also on display at the exhibition.

Gina Pierce is Textile Design course leader at The Cass.
Her rug design called Revelation, for the Fabrics of the City exhibition features an abstract landscape inspired by fabrics found at the Museum of London and the V&A Clothworkers Archive.
"The motivation behind the Exhibition was to celebrate the Huguenot Silks and to reveal their working processes, and this impetus continues in my design work for the show.  The fabrics in the archives stunned us with the intensity of colour, the riot of pattern and bling of precious metals.  #We are inspired by the intricacies of the weave techniques, but what we really want to know is how the underside looks, to explore the "backend", to demand that the fabric gives up its secrets. "

This Fabrics of the City exhibition – on until July 31^st – is a very modest production by comparison to the elaborate Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (which finishes on August 2^nd) concurrently on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London’s prestigious Knightsbridge, although much of these designers’ creative work at The Cass would not be out of place at the V&A event.   McQueen’s extraordinary talent to combine tailoring with cutting-edge techniques is well-documented gaining him the accolade as one of the most celebrated designers of his generation.  The common ground that these designers at The Cass exhibition have with McQueen is their ability to push boundaries and taking something historical into the contemporary world.

To help these designers understand well the legacy of the Huguenot Weavers, they were given first-hand access to archive material from the V&A as well as from Museum of London.  And the result is a broad spectrum of work exhibiting the breadth of their creativity and demonstrating how each designer could take different aspects or stories associated with the Huguenots' life and skillfully develop the ideas into unique pieces of work.

Enhancing the displays are photographs taken by The Cass' own resident photographer Steven Blunt showing the designers at work in their own studios. 

Jane Bowler’s copper dress in the foreground was constructed using hand-cut plastic multiples in combination with soft metallic strips which are hand woven throughout the garment, allowing the material to “grow” over the body of its wearer.  This woven element was also carried forward in Bowler’s plastic crochet dress hanging at the back, made in collaboration with knitwear designer Heather Orr.

Designer Jane Bowler’s creations (in picture above) feature woven imagery and surface texture embedded into the surface of plastic to create an imprint of the Huguenot past.  Her fascination towards material innovation, process and craftsmanship is evident in her latest AW15 collection, which combines traditional techniques with a modern twist.

Emulating the delicate qualities of historical floral weave (as seen in the picture above), designer Rentaro Nishimura brings the past and present together in this delicate-looking corset-style garment by utilizing the digital technologies of CAD and 3D printers.  The repeat component is produced by the 3D Printer and assembled on a mannequin using plastic rivets.  The combination of flexible polyurethane components, and pivoting rivets, allows the garment to move on the body.  The form, made up of hundreds of modular units, creates a three-dimensional geometry on the surface of the body.

From the House of Harlot comes this Latex dress in a silhouette that resembles that of the 17th century.  Founded by Robin Archer, the House of Harlot are garment  specialists of clothing and accessories made mostly of natural latex and other exotic materials.  Selling designs to private clients all over the world  the skilled artisans now work with high-end brands on their catwalk collections, including Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga, Christian Dior and many others, as well as stars in the music industry from Beyonce to Gyndebourne Opera, Christina Aguilera and Lady Gaga.  Based in Princelet Street just east of Brick Lane and Spitalfields, House of Harlot recently supplied some 50 catsuits for the cast of the Wachowskis' film Jupiter Ascending, and are currently working on a range of provocative uniforms for a private airline's flight staff.




Wearable technology merging into the world of fashion is the work of CuteCircuit founded by Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz as shown in Steven Blunt's picture below.

This dress from CuteCircuit is made in a pleated silk chiffon embedded with micro-lighting that can change colour controlled by a iPhone App.   The K-Dress is the ready-to-wear version of the dress that CuteCircuit had designed for singer Katy Perry to wear at the MET Gala in 2010, the same year CuteCircuit introduced the first line of technologically advanced ready-to-wear at Selfridges in London.  A video of a recent catwalk show nearly shows some of CuteCircuit's other work.

Karen Coughlan's Gin Drinking Gloves (at left here) feature imagery based on gin botanicals - bales, barley and hops and Hogarth's Gin Lane etching, showing the unfortunate fate of the street babies.  These handmade gloves with metal work embroidery are inspired by the Fanshawe dress on view at the Museum of London.

Lucy Rainbow (above) showed a selection of London Flowers fabrics which were inspired by anne Marie Garthwaite's design for a silk, in pencil, pen and ink and watercolour on paper, 2727, no 40 in the V & A book, Spitalfields Silks.  "I pictured her, drawing her designs, in her house in Princelet Street, particularly, these strange little blue flowers would look in a colour palette that reflected Spitalfields of today," she said.

"In addition, I have mae my design using ink an felt tips, no computer, to reflect how Anne Marie's paper design were generated by had," explained Lucy.

Rebecca Hoyes featured a range of fabrics designs under the title Clouds and a Few Satin Flounces.
An established surface pattern designer and colourist specialising in textiles, Rebecca said she was inspired by one particular book of sample works of the 18th Century silk weavers.

"I was seduced by the clear, bright, almost synthetic-feeling colours caught on the pages of the sample books and by the minute, detailed geometric patterning and subtle colour gradations," said Rebecca.

Three blanket creations designed by Alison Willoughby (in her studio below) in collaboration with textile designers Beatric Myfield, Mary Ann Chatterton.

Linen and Silk creations by Lisa Bloomer - an exploration of fibre, colour and pattern inspired by an 18th century Huguenot-woven silk dress (lined with linen cloth).

Flora Mclean's Vine Party Hat inspired by the colour and graphic of the
woven textile of the 17th century party dress.  "We looked at the fabric
under the microscope to see the also most digital quality of weave.
I have attempted to get the twill surface on the plastic hat
and to suggest lifting the plant lift/vine pattern up on to her head.
The threads were added to suggest the woven 3D construction of
the fabric under the microscope and the holes cut through to reference the
punch cards from the Jacquard loom. 

Flora Mclean of the House of Flora designed a plastic hat while Sam Wingate featured the landscape of Spitafields and screen printed buildings on wood using illustrations that depict some of the buildings originally built by the Huguenots, which have been used as places of worship, either by them or by groups arriving in the area in later years.

One of the pictures of Steven Blunt shows artist
Sam Wingate in his workshop.  Sam's forte is
illustrating architecture specifically of London.
His work for the exhibition show illustrations depicting some
of the buildings originally built by the Huguenots.

All the designers are based in and around the Spitalfield neighbourhood.  This was where the Huguenots escaping from religious persecution in France during the 16^th and 18^th centuries had settled down during the reign of Elizabeth I because they found food and housing here were cheaper, and there was more freedom from the economic controls of the guilds, according to historians.  And they brought with them their many valued skills, the Huguenots were silk weavers, silversmiths, hat makers and craftsmen of other expertise.