Abstracts & Biographies
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Futurescan 4: Valuing Practice University of Bolton, UK 23rd-24th January 2019 ABSTRACTS & BIOGRAPHIES Futurescan 4: Valuing Practice 23rd-24th January 2019 University of Bolton, UK Fashion and textiles practice intersects traditional processes and innovative technologies. Tacit knowledge acquired through hand skills, making, utilising equipment and working with processes is fundamental to developing understanding. Although practical learning is valued, the teaching of creative and making subjects is under threat in formal education. Within the fashion and textile industries there are skills shortages. Heritage crafts risk being lost as digital technologies and automation impact upon future generations. The Association of Fashion & Textile Courses (FTC) conference Futurescan 4: Valuing Practice, provides an international forum for the dissemination of research, creative practice and pedagogy surrounding fashion and textiles. Contributions from established and early career researchers, postgraduates, practitioners, makers and educators regarding completed proJects or work in progress under the following topics: • Valuing Artisan Skills, Drawing and Making • Learning from History, Tradition and Industry • Collaborating and Cross-disciplinary Working • Integrating and Connecting Digital Technologies • Designing Responsibly and Working Sustainably • Promoting Diversity, Employability and Community • Investigating Creative Processes and Pedagogy The conference includes keynote speaker presentations, full papers (20-minute presentations), short papers (10-minute presentations) and examples of practice-based work. Association of Fashion and Textile Courses (FTC) The Association of Fashion and Textile Courses (FTC) was formed in 1977. Today, the FTC exists as a subject association to promote and develop fashion and textiles through academic debate, education and research. Through its networks, the FTC has extensive links with industry, public and professional bodies and acts to advise on quality in educational matters nationally and internationally. For further information see: www.ftc-online.org.uk @FTCorg #futurescan4 CONTENTS KEYNOTE SPEAKERS 4 A1 Learning from History, Tradition and Industry 8 B1 Investigating and Explicating Creative Processes 13 C1 Valuing Artisan Skills, Drawing and Making 17 D1 Designing Responsibly and Working Sustainably 22 C2 Valuing Artisan Skills, Drawing and Making 26 A2 Learning from History, Tradition and Industry 31 C3 Valuing Artisan Skills, Drawing and Making 36 F1 Collaborating and Cross-disciplinary Working 40 G1 Integrating and Connecting Digital Technologies 44 C4 Valuing Artisan Skills, Drawing and Making 48 E1 Promoting Diversity, Employability and Community 52 B2 Investigating and Explicating Creative Processes 57 D2 Designing Responsibly and Working Sustainably 62 C5 Valuing Artisan Skills, Drawing and Making 65 A3 Learning from History, Tradition and Industry 69 F2 Collaborating and Cross-disciplinary Working 74 C6 Valuing Artisan Skills, Drawing and Making 79 EXHIBITS: Learning from History, Tradition and Industry 82 EXHIBITS: Collaborating and Cross-disciplinary Working 86 EXHIBIT: Valuing Artisan Skills, Drawing and Making 92 EXHIBITS: Integrating and Connecting Digital Technologies 100 EXHIBITS: Investigating and Explicating Creative Processes 101 EXHIBITS: Designing Responsibly and Working Sustainably 103 PRESENTER BIOGRAPHIES 104 KEYNOTE SPEAKER KAREN NICOL Textile Designer/Artist, Honorary Fellow RCA, Artist in Residence De Montfort University Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art, Karen Nicol is an embroidery and mixed media textile designer/artist with a design business working in fashion, interiors and gallery, based in London. In the fashion world Karen has worked and collaborated with design houses including Schiaparelli, Alexander McQueen and Louis Vuitton. Her work covers both ready-to-wear and couture, creating designs, developing concepts, catwalk garments and production. The King of Qatar, the Pope, Estee Lauder and Gwyneth Paltrow have been amongst many clients commissioning her work for interiors. Screens for palaces, tableware for parties, upholstery fabrics and rugs. Karen has also produced own label collections for companies such as Anthropologie and Designers Guild. Karen’s aim, throughout her long career, has been to break boundaries in conventional fabric embellishment and to push the preconceived expectations of embroidery. Most of her work is produced on a hand governed embroidery machine whose basic simplicity allows hands on innovation and huge diversity. In 2010 Karen began to create art pieces to explore and develop her passion for the infinite possibilities of embroidery without the restricting practicalities necessary in fashion and interiors. She creates large embroidered and sculptured animals as vehicles for her textile explorations ‘Couture Creatures’…. Napoleonic Polar Bears to Marquetry foxes. Karen has exhibited in galleries and art fairs around the world, with solo shows in London, Paris and New York. Currently her three-year role as artist in residence at De Montfort University opens up new, exciting opportunities to mix the knowledge and practical skills gained from a hugely varied 40 years of practice with further exploration of modern technology. Karen was founder, senior lecturer and visiting professor of the Mixed Media MA degree course at the Royal College of Art, London and has taught and lectured in colleges around the world. In November 2015 she was made an RDI, a Royal Designer for Industry, by the Royal Society of Arts. 4 KEYNOTE SPEAKER KATE HILLS Founder Make it British, Organiser Make if British Live! Kate Hills is the founder of Make it British, a platform to help UK manufacturers and British-made brands find more customers. Founded in April 2011 as a way of supporting British brands that manufacture their products in the UK, Make it British originally started as a blog, but has now grown to include a British brands directory as well as features on British craftsmanship and a resource for designers wanting to find manufacturers to make their products. Kate also runs the manufacturing trade show Make it British Live! which attracts over 5,000 visitors from 17 different countries, all looking to make their products in the UK Now in its sixth year, the next event takes place in May 2019 at the Business Design Centre in London. 5 KEYNOTE SPEAKER ANNE BODDINGTON Professor Design Innovation, Pro Vice Chancellor Research, Business & Innovation, Kingston University; REF 2021 Sub Panel Chair for Art & Design: History, Practice & Theory Professor of Design Innovation, Anne Boddington, is Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, Business & Innovation at Kingston University. Educated as an architect, an urbanist and subsequently as a cultural geographer, she has extensive experience of independent governance, over thirty years in leadership and management experience in higher education, nationally and internationally, spanning teaching, research, business and civic engagement with particular expertise in architecture, art, design and humanities. She is currently Sub Panel Chair for Art & Design: History, Practice & Theory for the U.K.’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021. 6 KEYNOTE SPEAKER LOU DALTON Menswear Designer, Founder Creative Director of Lou Dalton Lou Dalton’s ethos is simple: brilliantly made clothing for men with an emphasis on authentic, enduring design. Having left school at the age of 16 to become an apprentice for a bespoke tailor, Lou went on to study at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1998. Since launching her eponymous label in 2008, her work has been defined by a hands-on precision and an instinctive flair for cut and fabric. Lou’s clothing is contemporary yet timeless, drawing upon the traditions of British craft and the narratives of her Shropshire roots in a way that is forward thinking and modern; never nostalgic. The garments are functional and understated at their core but immediately eye catching in their unbeatable quality and ability to elevate the wearer; a subtly impressive trait unique to all of Lou’s designs that she sums up as “quiet noise.” With over two decades in the industry, Lou is one of the most experienced and skilled designers working in men’s fashion today. Her long list of global clients and collaborators includes Grenson, Jaeger, an ongoing collaboration with knitwear specialists John Smedley and a new collaboration with Gloverall for AW19. 7 ABSTRACT A1 Learning from History, Tradition and Industry Moving the Bust Dart: The Fashion Designer, Sylvia Ayton’s Relationship with Pattern Cutting DR. KEVIN ALMOND, University of Leeds The research explores the work and career of fashion designer, Sylvia Ayton (MBE) and her relationship with the craft of pattern cutting. Ayton graduated from Professor Janey Ironside’s fashion school, at the Royal College of Art, London, in 1960. In her autobiography, Ironside noted, “One of the best results of the social revolution in Britain since the Second World War has been the release of many young designers to the world, whose potentialities would have been wasted before the war” (1973, p.113). Ayton’s career evolved during this social revolution and is significant because of its flexibility and longevity. She worked as a designer in business partnership with textile designer, Zandra Rhodes, in the 1960s and as a commercial designer for a UK high-street retailer, from 1969 to 2002. This study will allow privileged access to her work archive, and