The textile designer

Friday, June 4th, 2010

As London Fashion Week draws closer by the day, we continue our focus on members of Jasper’s womenswear team – this time, introducing his Textile Designer.

Sara has worked closely with Jasper over the last nine years to develop unique prints and fabrics for his catwalk collections.

Each season presents a new challenge as Sara must translate his vision into reality. Be it an elaborate floral embroidery that graduates in density from corset to hem or panels of hand-tooled leather - she must find a way to achieve the effect desired.

This means experimenting with a variety of materials, inventing new ways to manipulate fabric or taking a fresh approach to some of the more traditional techniques like tapestry, appliqué or weaving.

Of course it is never a case of simply cutting a dress from the textile she has developed, the artwork must be crafted to fit each pattern piece. This ensures that when the dress is constructed, each seam matches and the overall design scales correctly around the body.

For Sara, this complex puzzle is the most satisfying part – she loves to draw out the large-scale plans required for Jasper’s ‘statement’ dresses. Sara followed her artistic parents into the design industry choosing to study Fashion Textiles at Brighton Polytechnic (now the University of Brighton).