Friday 24th Feb: "Tank Top Ranking, Tongue-Tied & Twisted" - the making of .......

The way I design is to fiddle around with paper and materials first and then put those samples onto the mannequin to toile a wearable item. Here are some snaps from that work in progress including the first hat which I painted to plan the pattern for the final one. The quilting shapes from cross sections of sushi rolls came from a ski jacket I made for my foundation in 1998 ...... I never knew at the time it would come out of the closet again! From the screen-printed sushi trousers of this project I chose to use the palette of washed out Wasabi greens, picked ginger soft pinks, caviar coral oranges, subtle salmon flesh tones and monochrome black and white mimicking the contrast of rice against seaweed wraps....... which we picked out in yarn for the cable knitwear collaboration with EDE ........ and latterly Rosy Nicholas on the shoes. I wanted to make headwear using the knots and ties from kimono obijimes ....... translate the twists and turns into a cable for cosy jumpers........ and then have Rosy relate the technique to her trademark French knitted tubes for the high heels and bracelets. To finally style the collection Kim worked with Bianca Tuovi to dye hair to the exact shades of the lambswool and Marian Newman to develop Nigiri nails........... salmon talons.............fish fingers, if you will. .......

Here is also the denim jacket I decorated last year that informed the studded element of the collection and its the underside of this panel that became the artwork for the invitation. I wanted a tetris formation that also looked like the components of sushi ........... which also gave us the idea to ask Pomp De Franc to magic up a bento box of yummy cupcakes for the show....