You my be wondering why I am making funky lace jumpers at the moment. The plan is to develop construction lace to construct furniture, and this is the by product of me learning how lace works.
Lacemakers may think this is a very odd way to look at lace, and yes it is a different direction for a different purpose. Whilst the end result may involve more emblems and complex lacemaking, currently the priority is to work on how it hangs and how to strengthen it without compromising on drape, therefore the Fire Coat has been a worthwhile development on Lady Victory.
I have also approached these garments as sculptures, which has made it interesting. As it turns out, the reason most plus sized clothing looks crap is because they make it in 2d, similar to smaller sizes.
When you approach it as a sculpture it is much easier to make a one size seamless garment. Lady Victory, in particular, is enormous and even drowns me without looking all that unusual in size.
Anyway, I think both of these items followed the same theme as the handbags and the shoes I still haven’t started working on, so I am pretty happy with the overall idea of them. I will do one more gilet, I think before I start moving on to the next stage.
I wore the Fire Coat today whilst out and about, and the response was pretty positive. You can tell without even seeing the whole thing that it is a special item, and it turned quite a few heads, although the younger people I spoke to did not seem to understand the idea of making something, which I found incredibly sad. They also seemed to be frightened rather than finding it fun. The people who have seen me working and know what I do thought it was very good fun, in comparison, so that was interesting from the perspective of context.
Basically if you don’t know that I am in the business of iconic wool, it just seems like I have just beamed down from another planet, which is sort of gratifying in a weird way.
In the meantime I am working on finishing the carpet components of the new range and will be entering the studio once I have caught up with the house and updated the website.
I also have the new items to construct, this will take over a month although it is one day’s work.
This week has been kind of mad. I ditched a couple of jobs, got a couple of jobs, generally a money week overall.
Long may that continue, although it won’t.
Need a good health week now I think.