Enjoying the finer things in life…

If you don’t know it now, I’ll just spell it out.  I’m not really into writing about people/things for the sake of pointing readers over to make a purchase and ‘BUY BUY BUY’.  To point out the obvious, fashion isn’t just about consumerism and I find it incredibly annoying that fashion and shopping seem to have gone hand in hand in a lot of people’s heads.  At the same time, I hesitate to say lofty things like ‘fashion is art’ etc, something that was touched upon when I posted about the exhibition of the same name.

Let’s just say I’m an admirer of talent even though it’s not physically tangible or buyable.  Take Emma McCorquodale for example. In a random bit of IQONS surfing (INFINITELY better than random Googling…), I came across her work. It was of course her showcase, not her name that struck me down. Emma hails from Gourock in Scotland and is a knitwear specialist who graduated from the RCA in textiles. It was there that she discovered her love of fine gauge knitting and incorporated that into jewellery. She very kindly spoke about her influences and how she likes to work, in a way that makes me want to rummage through her sketches and glimpse into what she sees to inspire her painfully beautiful work:

My sketchbooks are intrinsic to the development of my collections. The source of the story, mood and all inspiration which come from a variety of fields, from my own sketches to ceramics, nostalgia, a photograph, sculpture, found garments and always heavily influenced by Japanese culture which is always at the core of my own design aims. I am influenced by the functional construction of peices combined with a delicate beauty, designs which can be collected and treasured. I am not influenced by the seasons, the 6 month turnover of the fashion world, i feel this is dated. Designers i admire are Anne Valerie Hash. Demulimeester, Comme, Undercover.

With the current ‘a la mode’ wave of supersize CHUNKY knits (Giles AW07, Sandra Backlund – not knocking either…especially considering Backlund is getting a lot of acclaim for her work), it is really refreshing to see McCorquendale’s concern with the delicate and the fine.  Working with silk and creating scattered lacey patterns, these are garments that are begging to be treasured and placed between layers of thin tissue paper.  I like things that can be treated with disdain and meanness but there’s also a pleasure in taking great care whilst wearing and in between wears which is what I feel about Emma’s work.

Her MA Collection photographed in natural light as the grainy textures gives the viewer the impression of being a fly on a wall and looking at this girl and her garments:

After graduating, Emma was lucky enough to gain experience with DKNY and as a result, she now works for knitwear company Inhabit (which I checked out….. lovely cashmere tanks….).  She hopes to start selling her own pieces so it’s a matter of watching this space and admiring her intangible (to the majority of people here anyway!) work and hoping that she’ll go it alone one day and bring us delicate beauty to wear.  *Sigh* I guess it does in the end all go back to buying and wearing something.  Ok, have successfully contradicted myself in this post.  Goddamnit, does this fashion malarky ever have any sort of logical coherency?

Her work whilst in NYC, photographed by Brett Casper: