Trusteeship Scarlet Oliver working on a textile commission at Aynhoe Park, Oxfordshire
Scarlet Oliver
did bridge the gap between my creative training at college and the real world of business.
Scarlet Oliver, Liveryman and member of the Textile SubCommittee, talks about her career and involvement with the Texprint charity through membership of the Council. I am a textile designer with my own business. I design contemporary, very individual fabrics which are equally suitable for couture fashion, bespoke interior designers and architects. I was very privileged early in my career to work with Paul Smith on his first woven upholstery collection and I am often in Paris creating fabrics for some of the major fashion houses. All my woven textiles are produced in British mills.
So I was thrilled last year when the Chairman of Texprint asked if I would join the Council. It meets twice a year, and includes some very interesting people in the business. designers. The students’ work is critiqued by a panel of leading names in the industry, and their portfolios are exhibited at a Private View at the Chelsea College of Art and at the major Indigo Show at Premiere Vision in Paris. All the big names in the fashion retail sector attend these events and many of the Texprint winners will succeed in selling their work and getting commissions.
I studied textiles at Central St Martins and the Royal College of Art, and was very fortunate to be selected as a Texprint winner in 2006.
The students also get advice from experts on such subjects as pricing their work and protecting their designs’ copyright.
Texprint is a fantastic charity which each year provides a launch pad for twenty-four graduating
The advice I received then has formed the back bone of my freelance business. Texprint really
A few of us on the Texprint Council have been lucky enough to experience being a Texprint winner ourselves. I can now see from a different perspective how much hard work goes into supporting each year’s textile graduates. The time and experience given by the board and Texprint’s wider industry supporters is invaluable. One of the major roles of the Council is to participate in the judging process; it takes quite a lot of time, but is so rewarding, and I find it very fulfilling to be able to help and guide up and coming textile designers, so that they can benefit from the same brilliant support I got at the start of my career.
We are one of the major supporters of Texprint and each year sponsor the Space prize, awarded for the best fabric design for interiors.
Photographer - James McCauley
Texprint The winner this year was Ffion Griffith, who has recently graduated from the Chelsea College of Art and Design, where she specialised in weave and construction textiles. Cherica Haye Her work aims to revive Welsh weave in an original way, fusing a contemporary colour palette with urban patterning using natural fibres. Ffion Griffith 6 | THE CLOTHWORKER | Summer 2013
Cherica Haye is the winner of the Pattern prize; we have funded Cherica during her Masters at the Royal College of Art. In her work, she explores traditional yarns alongside less conventional materials such as horsehair and plastic.