Printed textiles for Phoebe Philo fashion collection (Chloe)

Working in close collaboration with international fashion designers, I innovate, design and produce limited runs of specialist textiles that cannot be sourced from conventional mills or engineered for the mass market, but which will influence the rest of the market in terms of trends and aesthetics.

My work is unique in the industry in that I do not sell swatches but always work to commission and in close consultation with designers. I have a close working relationship of ten years with some of my clients.

For this collection the designer wanted me to conceive and produce a unique vintage feel. To achieve this I subsequently developed an entirely new way of printing my design. I reversed the usual screen-printing processes of building up pattern by printing one colour after another, instead I printed the fabric black, then added a linear pattern, and then stripped out the colour by discharging (bleaching) the fabric to leave a residual pattern which was then hand stained with colour, steamed, washed and dried.

Working in close collaboration with the designer I printed my design as an all-over pattern on satin and chiffon in such a way that the designer could both use these fabrics for a variety of garment silhouettes and also as appliqués, e.g. cutting them out and stitching them onto jeans and bags as decorative detailing.

This process is too expensive to adapt to high street fashion but the look was copied as mass market companies adapted the technique from a three-stage one to a single-stage one.

My textiles were commissioned by Phoebe Philo for the Chloe catwalk show and Chloe advertising campaign worldwide, featured as adverts and editorials in British, Italian and French Vogue and most other international fashion publications and can also be viewed online at vogue.co.uk, style.com and catwalking.com