Designer Series, Knitwear: The Florence Swatches

April 06, 2010

Designer Series, Knitwear: The Florence Swatches

Since we last caught up with Cynthia F, our knitwear designer and Central Saint Martins student who is the subject of the Designer Series, Knitwear (and creates the greatest illustrations for her work), she's been busy with lots of projects including making a cardigan as part of a group project (photos to come) and a fabulous field trip to Florence, Italy. The purpose was to attend Pitti Filati, the premier international trade show for the knitting industry where she had the opportunity to see the new yarns for the upcoming season.

And there was a catch - a student project was to be completed as part of the Florence experience. They were asked to design a collection based on knit swatches developed from research made from inspirations taken from the city. No doubt they were in abundant supply.

Cynthia was taken with the idea of the clothes hanging off the wall at the fair - the contrast of soft and hard - and drew inspiration from the decorative walls outside the Duomo which figured into the beading of her swatches. While there wasn't time to make a garment for this project, Cynthia created these gorgeous illustrations and 'coloured' them with scans of the swatches to show what the garments would look like if they were made. I would love to see these realised, the mixing of the different textures and colours with the beading embellishment is absolutely intriguing.

I'm thrilled to announce that Cynthia F will be contributing knitwear to Swelle Boutique (launching this month) - they will be one-off pieces that will surely be inspired, truly original and beautifully handcrafted. I cannot wait to see them myself!