Textile Development: HOLLOW

For the HOLLOW collection, one of the main sources of inspiration was the natural world. Specifically, I wanted to emulate the texture of lichen and peat moss. This process began with an immersion dye bath, where the silk gazaar ground fabric was dyed in varying saturations to give the final arrangement further depth. Hand dyed wool roving was next, followed by applying the roving to the silk via nuno felting. This is a form of wet felting that bonds wool roving to a non-wool ground, typically silk fibers. For the final details, I embroidered over areas of the fabric with cotton embroidery thread, adding texture while further securing the wool to the silk.

In my next textile, I turned to the human body for inspiration. I wanted to emulate structure of bone marrow under a microscope. To achieve this, I painted silk organza with silk dye, then scattered salt over the fabric as it dried. The salt reacts with the silk dye to create a mottled appearance to the final fabric. Working with undyed wool roving, I utilized the nuno felting technique once again to give the fabric dimension, allowing the resulting gathering to play with shadow across the surface.

In HOLLOW, material exploration was key to my designs. Part of this involved experimenting with new techniques I had never attempted before. Laser cutting was a fascinating skill I have wanted to learn for a long time, so I developed a layered textile in Illustrator to test it. The textile was meant to experiment with how exact the machine could be, and how digital design could translate into something tactile. The first two layers were painted with silk dye and treated with salt, then the third was leather which was heat bonded to the silk. The leather adds structure to the textile, while still giving it movement.