To keep in theme with our February designer of the month we have managed to secure an interview with Louisa Harding. Many of you will have seen her patterns and yarns and realise that she sets the trend in knitwear creating designs you don't see elsewhere. We wanted to get a real incite into her work and what her inspirations were and I am sure you will find this of great interest, I know I did.
* How did your career as a fashion designer get started and what path did you follow?
Ever since I was little, I have always made clothing and had a strong interest in fashion. Growing up in the centre of London, I had access to all the wonderful museums, and spent my school holidays doing costume and fashion workshops. I studied Art and Dress at school, learning to cut and grade patterns then went on to take a degree at Brighton University in Textiles and Fashion. This was in the mid 80's when all the 'ready to wear' designers were showing handknits on the catwalk. As a result, we had projects sponsored by yarn manufacturers. I became very interested in hand knitting, loved the discipline. Unlike any other garment construction, this is the only one where you can control the shape of a garment by the stitches you choose. During my third year at University, I spent a three month placement at Rowan Yarns, and had two of my earliest designs published in Rowan Magazine 6. After completing my degree, I spent three months working for an American designer in Montreal and then returned to England, and worked with Rowan Yarns for eleven years. I just seemed to be in the right place at the right time.
*Who would you say has had the biggest influence on your career?
There are three women in my life who have had a huge impact on my career.
My grandmother Dorothy, who was born into a generation that had to make clothes, whether it was a knitted cardigan or a summer frock, whenever I visited her house she would be sewing, knitting or mending something. As a child I loved playing in her button tin and sewing box and she recycled everything! Then, when I was 13, one wet week during the summer holiday's my step-mother Dianne taught me to sew and work from a graded pattern, with her time and patience I learnt that making your own clothes is highly rewarding.
Then there is my mother Daphne, my true supporter, who when everyone else was dismissive she always said follow your dreams. These three ladies had a huge impact on me and it is for them and for women that I design.
*I am sure you are aware that Dreamcatcher has been one of your most popular books, what do you think has made it so popular?
I think ultimately my design work is very feminine and that resonates with lots of women. I like to tell a story with my books, I wanted Dreamcatcher to have a very romantic feel, one of my original inspirations for the season came from the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites . I work with my husband Stephen on the photography, his approach is very much from a male perspective, it is about portraying the inner beauty of women, and looking at the images in the book you can feel this.
Traditionally hand knitting has been viewed as frumpy and although a lot has changed over the last few years, I very much design for 'real' women, garments that are elegant but still practical, that aren't really complicated but are still interesting to knit, then once completed are lovely to wear because they fit and feel flattering, which in turn as women gives us an inner confidence, an inner beauty, I think that this feminine portrayal is the underlying success of Dreamcatcher.
*We have recently seen your new spring/summer 2011 yarns and patterns. What would you say was your inspiration for this season?
Again the influence was a very feminine one, I started thinking about names for the new yarns I had selected, I began researching about the sea goddesses and water nymphs in mythology, (both my new yarns have names with Ancient Greek origins, Ondine and Ianthe) this inspiration thread lead me to designing using lace patterns and cables that reflect the moving and rolling waves, selecting shades from seascapes, Azure blues, Coral pinks and Sand yellows, but I wanted to incorporate fashion themes to, a nod to the 1950's (Ondine and Hebe), Ballerina rock chic (Ianthe), so this is reflected in the garment shapes an styling. Ultimately I wanted to carry the sea theme through to the photography so we took a very small team to Portugal in November and photographed three of the new books down by the Atlantic Ocean, in the situ where I had imagined them.
*I know that you spend a long time researching and selecting yarns, could you give us a bit of insight into this process.
Twice a year there is an industry show in Florence, Italy, called Pitti Fillati, here the yarn manufacturers show their new collections, at Pitti Fillati you will find representatives from world renowned Designers such as Pringle, Burberry and Kenzo to large high street chains all looking at the new trends in yarn, colour and texture. At the show I will be shown new developments in fibre, yarn construction, patterning, then, like a kid in a sweet shop, I order lots of samples. When I begin to start thinking of the new seasons collection (over 12 months in advance) I look at the yarns I have short listed and see which best fits with my inspiration ideas or inspires me creatively. If I have an idea for a yarn that I have not seen at the show I will work with the yarn manufacturers to develop what I envisage in my head, which is the case for the new yarns I am working with for this coming Winter 2011-12 collection.
*When you design do you select a yarn and create designs to go with it or do you design garments and then select the yarn that will work with it?
Sometimes it's the yarn which inspires the knitted stitch then garment shape, and sometimes I have an idea for a garment shape which will only work with certain yarns. Always I start designing my collections by taking ideas from an inspiration source. It is integral to my creative process, to have a starting point to which the collection refers, whether it be yarn or design, inspiration sources can be taken from any number of experiences, whether a visit to Venice or a classic children's story such as Alice In Wonderland, or researching the Pre-Raphelites, which lead to the Dreamcatcher collection or Ancient Greek Sea Nymphs...
Author Resource:
The article was supplied by The Knitting Shop and you can buy Louisa Harding Yarns here.
The Knitting Shop is a great place to buy a wide range of different knitting wool.
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