Interview | Collective Textiles

posted by Anna Chayasatit October 14, 2014

If you are looking to print your own fabric, you will find Dalston-based creative studio Collective Textiles a real bonus. Set up by Claire Suckall, Sarah Pasricha and Louisa Sorrentino with many years of experience in film, theatre, fashion and interior industries, the three innovative textile artists have also worked in textile department on major film productions including Warhorse, Lincoln, Harry Potter and many more. They provide a specialised service in textile printing, fabric dyeing, screen-printing, graphics printing and design consultant and also you can hire a studio which has a 24-hour access at an affordable price. Here’s our little chat with Louisa about their practice and studio.

How do you go about setting up relationships with people from a variety of industries?
Claire began her career as a Textile Artist and worked for years creating costume effects for Theatre, Louisa completed an MA in Textile Design at Chelsea and has always been heavily involved in working as a Textile Artist for the Film Industry and Sarah trained in Fashion before also training as a Textile Artist for the silver screen. This has given us a wealth of contacts and knowledge to tap in to.

What effects have fast-changing trends in those industries i.e. television, film and/or theatre had on your creative process and design aesthetics?
Although it is not a trend, ‘Costume breakdown’ is a department that has only recently become recognized, we are now credited on most Film and TV credits but this is a fairly recent development. Aside from that, the biggest trend to have affected costume breakdown, dye and print is high definition TV. Everything suddenly had to be much more real and perfect.

Where do you usually turn for inspiration? Any designers and/or artists you admire?
Our job is to fake realism so we have to be constantly alert and aware of society, social status, textures, stains, and colours. In addition to this, photographs from newspaper reports on disasters are sadly a huge source of inspiration for us. They help us to understand how to create more nightmarish realism such as realistic blood spatters and evidence of explosions.
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Can you tell us about the oddest experience at the studio?
Most days here are a little odd for the ordinary person! Louisa has been out on the balcony and has just returned with a plaid coat, a hand held blow torch and the smell of burning. I think the coat was a little perky and she has been burning the life out of it.
Another odd experience – I always think it’s ironic when we get a brief to make factory workers uniforms look worn and laboured in. We have to labour SO hard to achieve any history in these indestructible fabrics.

What is your dream project?
A dream project for me would be a film or theatre production with a huge emphasis on colour, print and texture and lots of creative freedom.

What about your the current projects that you are working on – can you tell us a bit about them?
They change every day but we have a few big budget films in the studio at the moment. I have just finished dyeing a vintage 60’s Rayon top for Nicole Kidman’s character in her new film.

What distinguishes your studio from other local print studios?
Alongside all of our Film projects we also rent the studio to people who use the space for graphics, art and fashion printing. The studio is never overcrowded and feel we offer a really affordable service where members have freedom to come and go as they please. It’s always a really nice and social place to be.

For those who want to get their hands-on textiles printing – are you planning to offer workshops for beginners?
Yes we are, we will advertise it soon so keep checking our web site for updates!

For further details please check: www.collectivetextiles.co.uk