Art & Design blog
‘Running horses’ mural for Stella McCartney, by Giles Miller Studio
Artist / designer: Giles Miller Studio
Article author: Ricky Thakrar
Published: Thu, 27 Sep 2012
XETH co-founder, Ricky Thakrar, followed the creation of Giles Miller‘s four-metre high mural for Stella McCartney. A transcript of the interview is also available, beneath the video.
“I’m Giles Miller, I’m a designer, and I have a small studio that works on furniture, interior, and now surface projects.
We offer bespoke imagery on surfaces or walls for high end interiors, hotels, bars, restaurants. Now I’m moving into materials such as brass, etched brass, chrome, even fabric and ceramics.
A couple of years ago I was approached by Stella McCartney to produce a wall covering for their store in Paris. It was quite an exciting project, involving drawing one of her classic patterns – with horses running across the mural.
Recently, they’ve come back and asked for effectively the same product, and so we’re reliving that project. But this time it’s going to be a four-metre high mural, to be installed in Selfridges, in London.
I developed a technique which I call fluting. After the design process, we have a packaging company who produces and cuts these cardboard sheets into strips and they include loads of tiny little tabs, that effectively mark out the pattern we’re trying to create.
Once the small parts have been separated, they’re laid into the mural either with their corrugation flowing from left to right, or from right to left – and the direction that they’re stuck into the mural will denote the particular tone of that particular part of the image we’re trying to create.
There will be something in the region of eight thousand parts to this single mural, which does also add quite a lot of value to the piece
in terms of what’s gone into it.”
Performance sportswear, by Lexie Sport
Artist / designer: Lexie Sport
Article author: Ricky Thakrar
Published: Wed, 5 Sep 2012
For our debut Art & Design blog article, we filmed a video interview with Lily Rice, founder of Lexie Sport. A transcript of the interview is also available, beneath the video.
“In terms of the fashion and the look, we really focus on a geometric, Art Deco look. The origins of women’s sportswear really started around that period and the lines are something that aren’t
generally seen in sportswear so it really separates us from the competition.
I think my favourite pieces in the collection are probably the Mae vest and the Veronica short. I really like the silver panel and I think metallics is going to be something that’s fed through future collections. The detailing on the vest at the back is something I’m really keen on as well. It’s the surprising details, I think, make us really different.
The fabrics we use are mostly really soft, stretchy fabrics. We’ve got lycras, but we’ve also got a lot of viscose as well so they’re very breathable. Layering is something that I personally love, so by using the really light fabrics it makes layering really easy.
Designing performance sportswear adds an extra element to design in terms of thinking about ergonomics as well as aesthetics. You have to be really careful that the visual performance doesn’t overtake the performance of the garments; so seam placement, garment lengths… and one of the things we really concentrate on is the waistband on the shorts and trousers – so it’s angled, and really designed for a woman’s hips, rather than the straight cut of a man.
We just secured our first stockists, which is really exciting. We’re going to be working with Young British Designers which is an online site. We’ve also taken part in a BBC show, so that was a great experience and something that’s really going to help the brand.
It’s very important to me that as a younger-target audience brand, we’re feeding a good message – and that can be from the models we use, to the locations and the sports we portray. And I’m hoping that as well as changing women’s wardrobes, it will encourage a lot more women to get involved in sport – those that have been put off by really clingy, stretchy, pink sportswear might be a bit more keen now.”
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