Last Wednesday I attend the Teachers Evening at The Fashion and Textiles museum 'The Future of Knitwear'. The evening was in conjunction with the current Kaffe Fassett exhibition and it was a brilliant evening! I was hesitant about attending at first because, to be honest, I'm pretty cheap and I didn't like the idea of forking out £12 (£13 after the booking fee!) to go to an event! As our regular readers will know we are always on the lookout for free events, it's not always because we're tight but we, like many others I'm sure, don't work in places that can constantly reimburse you for every event you choose to attend, it's just not viable.
I made an exception for this one because I am a knitter! I was planning to visit the exhibition anyway so I figured the extra cost wasn't too bad as it included a gallery tour and two talks; one by Belinda Boaden and Wendy Baker of True Brit Knits and the other by Sandy Black. Sandy Black discussed her new book Knitting: Fashion, Industry, Craft which looks at the history of knitting from a development point of view - the images shown during the talk were interesting and it looks like a fascinating book. The wonderful ladies behind True Brit Knits talked about their background in knit and about their company True Brit Knits who aim to create knitwear patterns from a fashion point of view. They have a regular feature on their blog 'Monday Moods' which is a wonderful resource for students of beautiful mood boards - I can't wait to show my students these to get them re thinking what ought to be included in a mood board.
It was well worth it! Both talks were really engaging and I came away feeling inspired and with a really urge to knit (which I do regularly anyway but I feel inspired about creating some new stuff!). The only slight downside was that due to the large turnout they didn't conduct a formal tour, but the museum staff were on hand if you did have any questions. The exhibition itself is wonderful. The amount of colour and pattern on display all at once is incredible - I'm not sure my photographs do it justice so if you can get along to visit it, do! They even had the first cardigan Kaffe Fassett ever knitted on display! It was a truly wonderful exhibition.
The exhibition is on till June 29th and it's £8 entrance (£5.50 concessions), don't be caught out like I have been before though, the museum is shut on Sundays and Mondays. I really do recommend the teachers evenings if it's for a designer or technique your passionate about! The next teachers evening is in conjunction with the upcoming Zandra Rhodes exhibition. Zandra Rhodes founded the Fashion and Textiles Museum and the exhibition is celebrating her work and the fact that the museum is celebrating it's 10th year! The talk sounds cool as you get special access to the design studio and archive and their going to be discussing how the digital archive can be used with schools/colleges. You can book tickets, HERE.
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