Being open minded, passing on knowledge and listening to youthful ideas is something that everyone in every field should do. For the Dashing team teaching and learning is embedded in the creativity of the brand.

Kirsty has been passing on her weaving wisdom for years, teaching at Brighton, Winchester, The Royal College of Art and Central St. Martin’s in between her studio design work.

Philippa Brock the course leader of weaving at CSM kindly asked us to set a project for her second year students. This was a fabulous chance for us to have a creative dialog with excellent young minds.

All design needs a framework and purpose; as we were walking along the canal towards the new Kings Cross home of CSM we thought that a study of the Regents Canal was an interesting starting point. It bisects London through hidden tunnels, has a rich history and an active life today. 

julia sabery, tweed, collaboration

We asked students to walk along any length from Limehouse to Perivale and see what inspired them. For the project they had to design a fabric and imagine someone wearing it. 

As the assignment progressed we dropped by for chats with the students. The work they produced was of a spectacularly high standard and so when the time came to choosing a ‘winning’ design we had a particularly hard time. 

What impressed us most about Julia’s work was her comprehensive thought through the whole process. Her beautifully textured cloth design cleverly reflected her field research and her flowing sketches of a hero wearing the tweed were so well thought out and executed.

julia sabery, collaboration, tweed, csm, textile design

Hand weaving a design is one thing, but making a cloth that can be put into production with the mills we use on the Scottish Borders is another.  An exciting aspect of the award for Julia was working with Kirsty in her studio to adjust the cloth technically for production.

I loved the fact that Julia had seen the project through to conclusion with a beautifully produced drawing of a dude sporting a coat and hat in her cloth design. This is obviously a hugely important part of fabric design, making something that can fulfil it’s proposed purpose.

Dashing Tweeds constantly explores the shifting boundaries of sportswear, tailoring and fashion. The coat and ’90’s inspired bucket hat are great fun as you can see and we’ve already taken several orders, before lockdown.

The cloth would also make an excellent blazer for men or woman and I think a skirt cut on the bias would look fabulous.

Sadly our tailors are shut now for a month but we can ship any length of the cloth to you for home sewing. If you would like some do email me, and it’s 1.5m wide.

Like everyone else we are adjusting business for lockdown but call me anytime as I’m still posting out cloth orders and ready to wear items from our shop.