AUB Textiles students and graduates have been shortlisted for a number of industry awards prize wins, including nominations for a New Designers Award and two international competitions.
BA (Hons) Textiles Design graduate Heather Rumble has been shortlisted for the New Designers Award from the Clothworkers' Foundation for Printed Textiles. The surface pattern designer, who recently featured in Exposed Designers Class of 2020 Virtual Degree Show, has been inspired by the gentle Mediterranean tones of Greek fishing villages. Winners will be announced at the 2020 New Designers awards ceremony on the 17th September via Facebook.
Using a combination of hand and digital prints combined with illustrative CAD embroidery, Heather’s recent designs have used organic denims and linens mixed with organic cotton. Heather currently works as a Junior Print Designer for Kite Clothing, a childrenswear company based in Poole.
Of 550 university textiles students, Fellow Textiles Design graduate Holly Goodall has been shortlisted for a main prize and selected as a finalist for the NextGen Awards Premiere Vision International Textile Graduate Competition.
Holly’s competition entry Podlings is a unisex autumn-winter garment collection which takes inspiration from the book Seeds: Capsules of Life by Rob Kesseler, which comprises microscopic photography of various types of seed pods. Featuring light kimono-style jackets, slouchy jumpers and heavily embroidered jeans, the collection is characterful and bright with layered detail and frills.
Holly’s work combines traditional hand embroidery and knitting processes with CAD embroidery, machine knitting, and sublimation prints, and is especially interested in slow-process techniques. She specialises in Wilcom CAD design, Irish machine, hand embroidery, knitwear, (in)visible mending, slow processes and contemporary designs for fashion.
Following AUB student Daisy Rawson’s Hand & Lock’s Embroidery Prize win last year, fellow Textiles Design graduate Annette Moorhouse has this year been shortlisted as a finalist for the Hand & Lock Awards, to be held in November. Annette’s work and collection Neo Ocean will feature in an exclusive Hand & Lock exhibition in Bishopsgate in December.
News of the wins comes as AUB’s Textiles Design Course Leader Anne-Marie Howat takes up a mentoring role with prestigious embroiderer Hand & Lock, mentoring two competition finalists from London’s College of Fashion and New York’s Parsons School of Design.
Anne-Marie said: “It’s been an amazing year for our graduates of the Textiles BA Hons degree! To spite all the difficulties of the last six months, I am delighted to hear of our students numerous successes….
“We have a raft of finalists and award winners presenting excellence in interior printed design for wallpapers and furnishing fabrics, to fantastic children’s wear print, to earthy romantic knit for fashion, to sensitive and future facing couture crafting for fashion.”
She added: “I’m so proud of our graduates, they’ve worked hard and now it’s all beginning to pay off… Well done to the class of 2020, and to all those who are shortlisted and are winning awards.”
Textiles Design student Emma Rodak who won third place at Hand & Lock’s awards last year had also been shortlisted for the Fashion and Embroidery Show 2020, which was due to be held in March. Sadly due to the pandemic, the Show has been cancelled this year, however Emma’s collection has also this year featured in Exposed Designers Class of 2020 Virtual Degree Show.
Emma’s style consists of a variety of hand techniques fused with more contemporary digital practices, and focuses on tactile surface textures that aim to reconnect people with the completely vegan organic materials from which her garments are created.
