My interiors collection, titled Pamushana which translates from the Shona Language to ‘a place in the sun’, is inspired by the exotic nature of fauna and flora found in my home country Zimbabwe. It is bright and playful perfect for someone who wants to add an eccentric touch to their home. The current maximalist trend resonated with the memories of growing up in a house hold full of eccentric prints reflecting the mood and colours of summers in Africa. The colour palate I have chosen is synonymous with the bright greens of the grass and crops on our farm, the deep blues and purples of a storm laden skies and the bright saturated reds and oranges of my grandmother’s English styled garden.
I have looked both closer to home and further afield for inspiring artist and designers. Throughout my life my mother, a textile designer and fine artist, has been a big influence and inspiration to me. She specialised in starch resist African prints using vibrant colourways and stylised motifs of birds, fish, fruit and animals. Although we have a very different style we have the same understanding of colour. I have tried to best portray my use of colour throughout my collection, using contrasting bright colours much like my mother’s designs. Ardmore is another major inspiring African textile and pottery company based in South Africa owned by Fee Halstead. Her designs have been key in inspiring my choices of motifs and pattern placements. They too are also very playful, bright and distinctly African. On reflection, my designs are not necessarily typically African in appearance but are my interpretation of the ‘Zimbabwe Garden’ that I grew up in. My own little place in sun.
After the research phase I began the drawing and design development stage of the project. I do struggle a bit when beginning this stage as I am having to decide which media works best for me and the project at hand. Only once I have done a few design samples and experiments do I find which style of drawing is best for the final design outcome. For this project I wanted the designs to have a graphic appearance finished in illustrator, so I found that doing solid black drawings using fine liner and markers were the best option. I did however experiment with other media such as watercolours and acrylics. The acrylics were also somewhat successful because when painting I was able to achieve solid colours that could be easily interpreted by the illustrator software.
Having to create so many coordinating designs has been quite challenging for me, but after some research into companies textile collections I have been able to dissect what makes up a good collection and have tried to implement it in my own collection. Casamance a French company has been one such textile design firm that I thought had particularly amazing and diverse collections incorporating large florals with smaller geometric Ikat prints as well as all over texture prints and 3D embroidery elements. In the first stages of my design development, I had initially intended to incorporate embroidery embellishments to accentuate the maximalist theme, but after I had sampled a few pieces, I decide not to incorporate it as on some designs it looked too arbitrary and there were too few that suited the embellishment. Through the process of experimentation I did learn a few new techniques such as cord making, fringing and Turkish carpet stitching, I would definitely use these methods in any future projects I have as I found them to be eye-catching and successful, just not in the case of this particular project.
The second important part of this module has been professional practice and developing a brand for myself. To assist in this I created a brand board with guide lines that I can follow to ensure consistency across all platforms. This element has been extremely useful in creating press packs, Instagram accounts and websites. The responsive website I have created as my online portfolio has been coded in HTML and CSS, which I have learnt on additional courses outside of my degree. An important thing for me is having as many skills as possible so that I can find and develop the ones I love the most whilst still knowing how to do everything. Professionalism is one of my strengths so where ever possible I bring it out in my work.
The next major part of the module was our exhibition display, and I had two general ideas in mind. I either wanted to do a mock interior space with an upholstered piece of furniture, lampshade and cushion and a rail with my samples. I ended up not choosing this idea and went for my second plan which was creating more of an exhibition style display with large lengths of fabric being the main focus of my show. I have incorporated some products in the form of throw pillows, because that is the main thing my designs are intended for. And instead of the rail I had my fabric book.
I felt that with the rail option, it would dictate my space design more than the fabric book. With the book, less display space would be taken up so I would have room to play with more striking larger fabric pieces. I had either the option of making it myself or getting it made by Abby bookbinding. Ultimately it came down to cost. It was cheaper for me to make it on my own, and I trusted myself to do a good job. It was a lot harder than I expected and admittedly I did make a few errors here and there, but overall I am happy with the outcome as it was my first attempt.
Putting the exhibition space up was a lot harder and more time consuming than I thought, because there were lots of unforeseen details that had to be refined and adjusted according to my physical space. The painting was relatively quick and easy especially with the help from my second year buddy who has been amazing. The layout and placement of individual elements however was a bit tricky as there were so many possible options. On the second to last day I found the best layout and only then did I begin to fix things into place. The other big issue I had was ordering and receiving fabric deliveries from fashion formula on time. This was more my misjudgement than it was their error. They were easy to contact and I was able to update my delivery to arrive on time. This slowed my progress but I was able to get everything done still with time for adjustments.
Eliza Fraser-Mackenzie 