Wallace Sewell

Live Project Brief

After our visit to the Wallace & Sewell studio in London, we were set a live project to design and sample for a Wallace Sewell collection of either scarves or interiors. Wallace Sewell have a reputation based on their use of vibrant colour and are famous for their scarf designs. Similarly to how Wallace & Sewell design, we were given the task of beginning our projects by first choosing a painting. One painting stuck in my mind, which was Victoria Horkan's Butterfly.  

I began working by drawing out shapes and structures from my chosen painting, I mostly looked at the soft nature of the brush strokes, and the shapes of the wings. I was interested in developing different structures to go with the circular shapes that I found, as well as looking at the fragmented lines and wings on the butterfly. I tested several colour combinations through gouache stripes and yarn wrappings, and I eventually developed my palette of 12 colours. Our brief restricted us to picking 12 colours only through the weft. I designed my warp based on a Knoll 2 17's Lambswool and I wanted to weave at 28 ends per inch in order to give my scarf a weighty comfortable feel. 

Victoria Horkan Butterfly Series 1 and 2. Development Drawings 

In terms of context, I have chosen to base my scarf designs on Wallace Sewell's Diffusion range, which is a range aimed at the lower end of the market in terms of price. I wanted to design for this collection in mind as I like the way the middle of the scarves remain relatively plain, whilst the edges are decorative and fun. The diffusion range is priced from £49 upwards and Wallace Sewell sell these scarves to clients such as Anthropologie. 

Wallace Sewell's Diffusion Range