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Sew Cool

Illustrations embroidered in style

Kerry Rudgley

Fabric illustrations are not new, using embroidery to depict images is not new, so how come it's suddenly so cool? Pick up a style magazine; Dazed & Confused, The Face, I-D, even Vogue and there is every chance you will find an embroidered illustration inside. Why is the spotlight on stitch and what factors have made fabric illustration the height of fashion?

Many embroiderers are renowned for their illustrations. In fact the majority of embroiderers use their skills to create representational images. It would be true to say that figurative work has never been absent from the embroiderer's repertoire, but for years the creators of such work wandered in a fashion wilderness. Only recently have their skills and techniques gained wider recognition, becoming 'fashionable'. These revivals can be both bewildering and amusing as old techniques are taken in new directions and feted as a fresh approach despite being, in essence, centuries old.

But let's turn it on its head and look at illustrators using embroidery as their tool to create images from images. In August 2001, The Face magazine ran a competition asking readers to send in illustrations of the covers of back issues. One illustrated cover that really stood out was designed by Lisa Harker; she had created her cover version using appliqué. The previously glossy photographic image had been naively reworked in shiny light blue satin, white, pink and red cotton, facial details were stitched and the result was a strong craftbased image, a huge contrast to the original cover. But Lisa Harker was not the only entrant to use embroidery as their chosen medium. Sarah Crawford hand-stitched her cover on denim, Stuart Hardie machined an outline of the typeface on calico and a designer under the pseudonym 'buy me a pony' recreated an entire cover in beads. Can we use this moment to pinpoint the start of an embroidery revival?

There is academic research that supports the notion of a general craft revival and various theories suggest underlying causes, a reaction to war and conflict, an increase in nostalgia as we passed through the Millennium or a rejection of the uniformity and perfection achievable in a digital age. As we enter a time where even primary school kids have computers and most objects that surround us are machine-made there is a desire to bring back craftsmanship. It is a phenomenon with many strands. Knitting was proclaimed cool sometime in 2002, spurred on by Cast Off (see Embroidery January 2003), a group of evangelical knitters who were willing to teach anyone with a spare five minutes how to knit one, purl one. The knitting world found itself dealing with an unprecedented amount of attention. In an article from The Daily Telegraph, 12 October 2002 titled 'Why Knitting is the New Rock 'n' Roll', Dominic Cavendish wrote; 'Knitting is officially cool. It's not quite up there with snow boarding or skydiving granted but after spending several decades languishing in the bottom drawer of affection, it's suddenly become a pastime to partake with pride'.

So, perhaps knitting did become cooler, but the amount of knitwear we possess has probably not fluctuated very much over the last 30 years. How-ever, in recent years, embroidery has flooded into British homes and high streets like never before - and it's everywhere. From Gucci to Gap we are bombarded with embroidery. We can buy it at Dolce & Gabbana or down the market, but the latter represents the downside, the cheap, unskilled mass-produced items which greatly devalue embroidery. Many consumers expect all that glitters at a rock bottom price. However, the work is not only substandard but the design is rarely considered. Yet dig deep and within all the glitzy rubbish some true gems still shine through, promoting a wider appreciation of embroidery.

Not since the '70s have we seen such a love of embroidered goods and maybe that's where it all lies, back in the '70s. Cast your mind back - to the homewear, spider plants in macramé holders, patchwork quilts, felt animals; to the fashion, denim dungarees, knitted ponchos, embroidered appliqués everywhere. Children of the '70s are nostalgic for a time when many mothers still didn't work all day, when the bookshelves were filled with cook books and craft manuals, for a childhood of much making and doing. Well, those kids grew up and learnt other things along the way - things like Photoshop - and a new range of craft skills have surfaced for this generation. In the digital age these new craft skills are used for making beautiful imagery without a pair of scissors, no glue or fuzzy felt, but instead a computer, extensive knowledge and graphic sensibility.

Graphic designer Lizzie Finn graduated from Central Saint Martins in 1996 and made a major breakthrough with her work when commissioned to design a record cover for the band Moloko. Much of Lizzie's college work included '60s and '70s references; craft books, girls' annuals and packaging were her sources of inspiration. Lizzie loves the layout of craft manuals, the typography and photography used to show the necessary equipment and the final product. To create the Moloko cover, song lyrics and text were set using the typography typical of 1970s 'How To' books. Lizzie produced the images by following a set of instructions to create a collection of soft toys and embroidering the song titles in cross-stitch. All these handcrafted items were then carefully arranged and photographed in the style of the craft manual. Once the three-dimensional creations had become a flat image Lizzie added the final extra type and the result was a harmonious combination of both handicraft and digital craftsmanship. Since the success of this album cover, Lizzie has continued to use craft as a source for her graphic design and illustrative work, using embroidery in much of her imagery.

Her work is seen in Dazed & Confused, English and Japanese Vogue and Relax magazines, illustrating features, fashion ideas and advertorials. For fashion magazine stories, Lizzie may work with a photographer and stylist to achieve the desired composition, but mostly she creates the idea and image from start to finish herself. Planning is divided between sketchbooks and the computer, drawing and photographing, using her graphic training to plot layout and colours before commencing on the textile piece. Even midway through the piece Lizzie may scan the embroidery and superimpose colours and textiles to make design decisions. The final stitch on the fabric is not the finish. The piece will be photographed again before being formatted, typeset and sized to fit the final printed page.

Photographer and editor of Marmalade magazine, Sacha Spencer Trace, conceived the idea of creating a fashion story using embroidery as its illustrative medium. She collaborated with stylist Stacey Williams for a Tank magazine fashion shoot. The photographer and stylist worked in the conventional way to create a photographic fashion image, which was then converted into a multi-head machine embroidered illustration with the technical assistance of embroidery designer Debbie Stack. Sacha sees it as an age-old medium with an incredible amount of untapped potential. The mix of different methods and collaboration resulted in strong contemporary visual images and an advertising campaign for Levis soon followed from the success of the Tank fashion piece.

This new type of work reconfigures the boundaries with a wholly practical objective. These designers/artists/illustrators create with a specific goal in mind and tend not to agonise over recognised genres or classification. Paula Sanz Caballero embodies this no nonsense attitude. 'I am not an artist who respects the intrinsic qualities of the materials. On the contrary, I push the material until it fulfils my narrative needs. Everything I know about the material, its possibilities and limitations, comes from my desire to mould it as I please, and thus to tell stories through it.' She is primarily concerned with breaking the presumption that slow and meticulous needlework cannot transmit a sense of sophistication. 'The illustrations I did for Elle UK adopt the language of photography and combine it with a technique traditionally quite contrary to the concept of spontaneity inherent in photography.'

For almost seven years now she has been telling stories with needle, thread and fabric swatches. Born into a family of more than four generations of textile merchants, as a child she played among piles of fabric. However, her work does not draw exclusively on the past, instead it combines technology and tradition. By merging elements she feels she gains the best of both worlds. 'Artists often feel that in order to be "contemporary" they must limit their work to new technology and that it is necessary to separate themselves from everything related to tradition. How then must the observer for whom anything related to textile work, except for fashion design, is usually considered as a domestic labour or craft, approach works in this medium? If the artist himself does not see textile art as a valid medium, it is impossible for the observer to do so.'

So, am I implying that embroidery is only cool if you can scan it, reformat it, process it and graphically adapt it into a glossy 2D page? Well, these designers produce finished illustrations that are a very clever interaction of craft, design and graphic skills but the embroidery definitely hold its own as art. It is the design content and references that make them right for the moment.

This article is from Embroidery, Volume 54 No.6, © Kerry Rudgley