In anticipation of the British Museum’s forthcoming Indigenous Australia exhibition, we look at the rise of Aboriginal textile designs in fashion and interiors. Indigenous Australians’ oral tradition and spiritual values are based upon reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime – a sacred era when ancestral totemic spirit beings created the world. […]
The oldest art ever discovered is now available for public viewing. But the cave paintings to be seen in the Ardèche region of France are in fact recent reproductions of the originals. The Chauvet cave, named after Jean-Marie Chauvet, one of the three people who found the treasure trove of Paleolithic paintings, is open rarely, to just a […]
For anyone who didn’t see Valentino’s 2015 resort collection coming (see images below via Style.com), the multicolour mosaic trend has been building up for quite a while now, though most people still seem to be wearing normcore greige. Despite the so-called phenomenon of ‘colour-blocking’ (an opportunity for the style challenged to get away with bizarrely […]
We mentioned this trend a while back. Handcrafted marbling and mosaic effects that have caught our attention encompass clothing, textiles, rugs, tableware and furniture, including: Carpets by Beldi and Boccara. Turned paper vases by Pia Wustenberg and lamps by Becky Creed. Studio Silo plates and textiles by Wendy Tsu. Console table with magnet tiles by […]
Art and fashion lovers the world over are inspired by Frida Kahlo, yet few will ever have travelled to Mexico. Now there’s a chance to get a taste of genuine Mexican style in London, by visiting Made in Mexico at the capital’s Fashion and Textile Museum. The colourful new exhibition on the art of the […]
This is a trend that won’t go away. From the 1960s to the ‘80s, American toys like Barbie, My Little Pony and Care Bears transformed the colour palette of the young wardrobe. During the 1990s, when many international brands opened their first branches in Japan, Harajuku-style fashions were adopted by Europeans, and designers like Servane […]
The Indus Valley area has a longstanding tradition of stitch-craft and textile weaving, but in recent years the quality of workmanship has deteriorated due to a lack of emotional connection between the makers and their craft. As part of her PhD at the Royal College of Art, Seher Mirza set up a project not only to […]
The Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi sees imperfection as a form of beauty – a product can actually be enhanced by its irregularity. Here we take a look at some designs which celebrate the imperfection of handcrafted work. In the spirit of our previous post, Kaixi Lin reuses discarded materals to create functional woven textiles. Inspired […]
This exhibition should have niche appeal – at least to ‘anoraks’ of the fashion world. Textile designers, embroiderers, costume curators, quilters and enthusiasts of handcrafted fabrics will certainly appreciate the work that has gone into creating the pieces on show. Historians and sociologists may well be fascinated by the backgrounds of the unintentional abstract artists. […]
As climate chaos becomes a more regular feature of our lives, designers will increasingly employ icy effects and frosty finishes in their work. The candle holder above, made from natural rock crystal, will come in handy during power outages caused by freak storm conditions. The glittery, paillette-covered bag by Mawi will cast sparkles of light onto snow […]