A bit more Pre-Raphaelite / psychedelic

On Friday I went to the Tate Britain with my friend Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp. There amongst other things we saw an exhibition about that great arbitrator of the aesthetic, Kenneth Clark. There was a lot of Pre-Raphaelite work in the show and some pretty far-out visionary stuff too.

I thought, "My designs are way too tame".

So inspired by the day-glow pallets of artists like William Holman Hunt I have been working up the old leopard and markhor design (it's still very much work in progress).

Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat

Heavy on the saturation 

The scarf re-worked again, and much improved (I hope!)

Well here it is... You had better like it as I have just ordered 20 of them in crepe de Chine.

 Silk Crepe de Chine Scarf

I have just got back a silk crepe de chine scarf from the printers. It is super-thin and a bit like raw silk to the touch. Very classy.

A Lady's Scarf

I have been working on turning the leopard and markhor design into a lady's scarf. The idea is that it would be digitally printed onto something like pashmina or for a lighter weight version, silk.

Lining Shots

I have been working on an over-shirt made from shu wool and lined with my snow leopard and markhor chase fabric. The cut isn't finalised, but I here are some images I just took of the lining.

The Development of a Lining

The linings of Hindu Kush jackets tell you something about where our remarkable wool comes from. The lining below has developed around the idea of two of the most mysterious animals of the Hindu Kush mountains, the snow leopard and its prey the markhor (an endangered species of ibex). Both creatures are extremely rare, the snow leopard is internationally famous, but fewer people know of the markhor. However, to the Kalasha people of the Hindu Kush, markhor are sacred. For the Kalasha, markhor are the purest of creatures since they are herded by the spirits of the mountain tops high above the polluted world of men and women. 

                             

     The famous snow leopard / ibex chase from the BBC's Planet Earth series, shot in the Hindu Kush.

Images to be reproduced only with the permission of Hindu Kush ltd.