THE DESIGNER

I can remember as a child play was making things from my imagination. I would use any material that crossed my path and work it to become something desirable to me. 

Weaving weeds into a textile of African & Oxeye Daisy and Stinking Mayweed and draping my floral carpet across an imperfection on a branch of the Jacaranda tree at the centre of my Grandparents garden. Sorting the daisy heads and stems in terms of size, length and species to include in a sophisticated design grid I had dreamt up to manufacture that day.

I have always been interested in textures, the feel & smell of things.  Surface touch to me is at times mesmerising. My hands seem more reliable and searching than my eyes have ever been. 

At the base of a two hundred year old pine tree in the grounds of my boarding school I would steal some quiet time running my hands through a secret mink brown topsoil that cushioned exposed tree roots after I had raked away part of the weathered pine needle floor. I would trail my finger through this yielding layer of silk-like wonder as with the crystal bowl of loose face powder that sat on my mother’s morning dresser at home; both suggesting her luxe chamois silk blouses that we were not allowed to embrace.  

It would also be true to say I have been obsessed with clothes and how else I might wear them.

And then how else I might make them!

Creating an original textile is always my starting point. Constructing wearables from the beginning seemed absolutely normal to me. Working with the yarn in its virgin form means I can push creative passion and determine its final executable outcome with greater control than if I am bound to an existing fabric. 

I get to decide the final sculpt.

I discovered the origin of natural fibres spending school holidays in rural Australia, watching the crop or the fleece grow in the paddock and tracing its pathway to a finished yarn. It would have been in this environment that I became attracted to working hands and bodies. Having the utmost reverence for the set of tools we received gratis at birth.

It seems totally obvious to me that I would use my hands for my fashion endeavours. Nothing delivers more joy than to work alongside my Knit Team to create immeasurable beauty for others to wear by working natural fibre strands with our hands.

- Miranda