17th October 2024

 Rachel's presentation 'How textiles tell stories' was brought to life by the wide range of her work which she brought to illustrate her very informative and thought provoking talk.

Rachel came from a home with a sewing background where her mum made clothes and taught her stitches. She took a one year Art foundation covering photography, life drawing, painting, fashion textiles, this gave her a direction. Her degree was Fashion and Textiles, during the first year she was encouraged to draw - focused on roman frescos/ mosaics, the second year saw wedding dress design with pattern cutting etc. Following this Rachel spent a year at a trimmings design company - designing collars for dresses and jumpers, where she learnt about budgets,working with customers, using a limited colour range.Next she had a job designing socks which introduced her to using a computer and designing using CAD.

Rachel joined a City and Guilds pattern cutting course creating the 'Pebble dress', she researched on beaches, waves,pebbles etc recording in sketch books. From this she designed pattern blocks and cut out, created designs using gutta resist  hand painted on then applied silk paint in layers, which she then fixed, once the dress was made she used a soldering iron to burn out areas to produce the desired effect of the edge looking like pebbles in surf.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She was approached by Remix group and here worked to a theme of collaboration, for this Rachel used a sketch book, containing sketches and silk painting, which belonged to her grandmother when she had lived in Shanghi, Australia and Hong Kong. She used the work, copying it onto transfer paper, then cutting out stems, twigs with flowers, having found a dress belonging to her grandmother she applied these using free machine embroidery round all the stems, flowers, and then cut round the shapes removing most of the back.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next for Rachel was Materials Matter - any material clay, fabric, thread etc, as she wears white shirts she decided to use old shirts, cutting them on the bias, machine zig zag to get a 'lettuce' edge. Fashion victim blouse - cut out labels from clothes to use to decorate collars. Rachel researched cotton which has a difficult history involving slavery, excessive water use etc. There is also a fashion transparency index - Who is Making My Clothes? - brought about following the devastating factory collapse in India, which revealed the conditions in which people worked, where many big name companies had outsourced their making to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lines of Thought - strands of denim, each free stitched with machine embroidery and cut out, the denim hand painted and embroidered. (at this point Rachel left teaching)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Refresh Project - use language of Chester as a starting point, Rachel selected black and white buildings, taking the four oldest (Leech house etc) and using patterns from these to embroider on white fabrics from charity shops. She included painting, embroidery based on Elizabeth 1st . Also the story of a Chester family is featured in the work. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rachel is now self employed delivering a variety of workshops and talks.