Sat 25th Feb: Look-Book behind the scenes

Just a little look back to the look-book shoot and behind the scenes of the beauty department with Yin Lee and how Bianca Tuovi hand died the incredible hair to match the EDE knitwear. You can also see Alex Cunningham's cosmic set design which provided Elisha Smith-Leverock with the perfect soft pastel background. In the top image is the final look-book designed by NoDaysOff, printed, folded and gifted on the bench at the show. To listen a live interview with all of us from the day, catch up with Gemma Cairney's Radio1Xtra show and hear Kim Howells explain the entire process of designing the collection to the very end promotion........... here.

See the whole set of finished images on my site.

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....

Thurs 23 Feb: Backstage at Fred Butler AW12 by Emily Beard

A peek backstage at AW12 collection ‘Tank Top-Ranking Tongue-Tied and Twisted’.
Images by Emily Beard