Borders fashion student wins Kingsman tailor's challenge
A Borders fashion student is to have her textile design turned into a sports jacket by the tailor which helped inspire the Kingsman movies.
Lois Cowie (pictured above), who's preparing to graduate from Heriot-Watt University’s School of Textiles and Design, won a challenge set by Savile Row tailor Huntsman and Huddersfield Fine Worsteds.
The 22-year-old, from Buckie, revealed she was inspired to study textile design because her grandmother was a kiltmaker and she was brought up making her own outfits.
“I’m really chuffed to have won this challenge, as I put a lot of work into it,” Lois said.
“My design is inspired by the contrasts in Glasgow’s Merchant City, where I used to live. It’s full of 17th century buildings and lots of people working in serious jobs. But it’s a different place at night, with lots of clubbing and celebration.
"I tried to reflect that in my use of colours, with beiges for the sandstone buildings and reds and pinks for the night-time aspects.”
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Lois’s design will now be woven into a 60-metre length of cloth by Huddersfield Fine Worsteds, before being tailored into a jacket by Huntsman and displayed in its window on Savile Row, a street in Mayfair, central London, that is famous for its luxury tailoring.
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Iain Milligan, Managing Director of Huddersfield Fine Worsteds and Campbell Carey, the Head Cutter and Creative Director at Huntsman, both trained in Galashiels at The Scottish College of Textiles, the forerunner to Heriot-Watt School of Textiles and Design.
Iain said: “We were very impressed with the quality of the students’ work and it made finding a winner very tough. Campbell and I are both from Glasgow, so we were drawn towards Lois’s Glasgow-inspired design. But we also liked the big and bold design, which will work well as a woven cloth and will look good in Huntsman’s window.”
Campbell said the quality of all the students’ work was “unbelievably good”. He added: “What’s particularly remarkable is that the students have really only had two years to learn and get up to speed with weaving, which isn’t easy, as it’s a very time-consuming process. But we could really see the hard work and passion of the students coming through.”
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