SUPPORTING TEXTILES: TEXSELECT With contributions from Past Master, Christopher McLean May
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he Clothworkers’ core funding for TexSelect (then TexPrint) started in 1999. Today, we sponsor the TexSelect Interiors Prize, awarded annually at the Première Vision exhibition in Paris. Première Vision ‘Pluriel’ first put together six different shows with complimentary businesses, which constituted a unique range of textile disciplines – yarns, fabrics, manufacturing, leather, design, and accessories – for international fashion professionals in 2005. Over time, the exhibition has evolved. The TexSelect programme now goes far beyond a way to help new designers enter the exhibition. Textile designers apply to TexSelect in the hopes of making the ‘short list’ of approximately 30 designers chosen for the programme. To help these young designers understand what they need to know, TexSelect mentors each of them as part of the programme. Many receive valuable advice, such as information on the manufacturing textile technologies that would enable (or not) their creativity and innovation to be mass produced. Designers also learn how to work out costings on designs for sale, including the mark up retailers would use for finished products and how to work back from important psychological price points to maximise sales. It is at the exhibition that designers’ work is viewed – alongside work from important design ‘houses’ – by professional buyers looking for work that can be transformed to various end uses. Designers learn to negotiate on price and some get offered internships
Above: Eve Campbell smiles (left) shortly after receiving her award from Master John Coombe-Tennant (middle), along with Past Master Christopher McLean May (right).
with important manufacturers. In the last 20 years, more than 3,000 TexSelect designers have secured work and continue to play an important part in the industry.
techniques, capturing microcosms of colours, shapes and patterns inspired by landscape on the west coast of Scotland.
The Clothworkers’ Company is proud to support TexSelect awards. The 2018 winner of the Interiors Prize was Eve Campbell. Eve studied at the Glasgow School of Art and was also short listed for the M&S TexSelect Fashion Fabric Award. In addition, she was selected for the AVACadCam training Award.
Eve exhibited in Paris alongside Claudia Sabina Veneroni, who received The Clothworkers’ Company Associate Prize at New Designers earlier in the year. We were delighted to welcome both Eve and Claudia to Clothworkers’ Hall for the 2018 Alumni Dinner. Guests were treated to a display of some of the work they each presented at the exhibition in Paris.
Eve works with printed surface designs created through screen printing and paper stencilling
We are excited to see what the future holds for both these young, talented designers. THE CLOTHWORKER | SPRING 2019
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