Rowena Luke-King

When designing fabrics for fashion it is easy to forget that not only are you working within an ever-changing and extremely competitive industry, but that once your designs have been converted into cloth they will be cut and made into clothes. It is essential to carry out extensive trend and market research before deciding on your choice of colours, yarns, fabric construction, print and embellishment techniques, and vital that your image layouts are executed with garments in mind.

This course, which combines an interest in both fashion and textiles, will introduce you to the work of designers and trend forecasters as you produce a story board presentation with colour and fabric swatches, to inspire a collection of fashion textile designs.

You will learn how to predict trends whilst investigating the impact of designer fashion on the international fashion textile industry. You will be introduced to a variety of materials and techniques used to create designs for fabric on both paper and cloth, explore different image layouts including 'non-directional all-overs' and learn how to use colour to create impact and continuity within a design collection. Depending on how quickly you work, should you wish to produce a small group of finished textile designs you may do so. No previous experience is needed for this course.

Rowena Luke-King has had an extremely diverse career in design. She has worked as a designer and colour consultant for textile design studios and leading retailers such as Marks & Spencer and NEXT. She has produced collections of clothes, accessories, hand printed fabrics, greetings cards and wrapping papers for a number of stores including Fiorucci and has worked as a stylist in the music industry (stage clothes that she created for 'Adam and the Ants' have been exhibited in the Victoria & Albert Museum). Rowena studied fashion and textiles at Central Saint Martins and is currently involved in sourcing vintage fabrics for the fashion industry.