Digital Leather and Textile prints and large scale canvas installation

This collaboration with fashion designer Tristan Webber formed the basis of my exploration of the digital printing process to enable customised and engineered designs for an individual. Over a period of two years a body of work comprising some 30 garments and a series of large scale canvases were created, exploring not only the creative potential of this new medium, but also as an observation on technology as a filter through which we observe and interact with the world. One collection, for example, centred around the ideas of navigation, and how early cartographic and current satellite tracking images have changed our understanding of the earth.

In this collection colour perception was explored using CMYK process, and the relationship between the anatomy of a garment and its surface decoration, where decoration works as a function of the design, as opposed to a surface imposed upon it. Another strategy was to challenge the notions of “repeat” pattern by producing repeat lengths of up to 18 metres, which would previously have been impossible using traditional methods, thus rendering each garment with an unique print signature.

Engineered and digitally printed clothing offers the potential to offer mass-customised clothing. It is also a much more waste-efficient and sustainable method of production.

This collaboration was sponsored by Trenchant-Browne to showcase a new digital printing process on leather, and as such was pioneering new forms of surface decoration technology for the fashion industry.