Archive and Renew

At the Pringle of Scotland A/W 11-12 show during London Fashion Week as I was exiting, I quickly glanced over the Central Saint Martins x Pringle Archive Project that was laid out at the entrance to the venue and knew instantly that it had to be blogged about.  Then I was stopped by the all-too-familiar 'Press Embargo' warning from the PR.  Boo.

Good things come to those who wait though, as at Pitti Uomo in Florence last week, the project was formally presented complete with the second stage of the project, aptly timed to usher in the new with the old, seeing as Alistair Carr has just begun his creative directorship at Pringle, replacing Claire Waight Keller.  Just to rewind, Pringle and Central Saint Martins have had a long-standing collaborative relationship which has recently manifested itself in an archive project whereby the BA Fashion History & Theory students were asked to research and catalogue the company archive, delving into the Pringle Headquarters in Hawick, Scotland, overseen by course director Alistair O'Neill.  The students were tasked to assess the significance of the archive pieces along with the imagery, printed memorabilia as well as looking at British Pathe footage (I'm still loving this amazing resource that is now all archived online with embeddable video links as seen here…). 

1952 Pringle fashion show showcasing the latest in 'knitted sportswear'

They also held a Day of Record where the locals of Hawick were asked to come and bring anything that was Pringle-related – kind of like Antiques Roadshow but Pringle-themed.  Over 300 people came with their Pringle pieces or Pringle-memorabilia for the students to analyse and catalogue.  The students' findings were wide-ranging – from putting together a pastel palette from archive pieces that feels very contemporary when you see them today…

…to seeing fur trims on Pringle of Scotland cardigans where the label of the partnering fur company from Hong Kong are sewn in the piece along with the Pringle label, proving that open-collaboration was something that Pringle practised…

Despite Pringle's founding in 1815, not many pieces from the 19th century have survived and so much of the archive project revolves around 20th century developments such as Pringle's inventing of the famous argyle pattern, its pioneering of the twinset as well as its associations with casual knitted sportswear for women (mainly golf) – all images that have been perpetuated about Pringle over and over again but seem far more interesting in scope, when you see the earlier archive pieces and films, in comparison to the later 80s-90s Pringle-branded pieces of knitwear that I'm familiar with, which perhaps suffered from being weighed down with 'heritage'.  The 60s-70s imagery from Pringle particularly fascinated me with its youthful imagery that tries to evolve the prim n' proper twinsets that was so much in demand in the 50s. 

Beyond the well-known connotations of Pringle though, the archive project uncovered a few things that I never knew about such as Lesley Rankin, head designer of Pringle in the 60s, who was the first to develop a silkscreen on cashmere technique.  Details such as this play into the second part of the CSM x Pringle project which is where under Professor Louise Wilson (I nearly cacked it when she told me she read my blog…), the MA Fashion students were asked to design a capsule collection of knitwear based on the archive findings.  Thus, the paisley silkscreen technique shows up in the collection here, incientally being one of my favourite pieces that hopefully will worm its way into my wardrobe…

Five MA students' designs were chosen to make up this collection, which comprises womens and menswear and funnily enough none of them were knitwear graduates.  Wilson explained that the students worked independently but all seemed to gravitate towards the argyle print as well as playing with the idea of the twinset and amazingly, the collection comes out perfectly cohesive.  The result is that a clear-cut message of Pringle of Scotland's archive DNA has been distilled into a knitwear collection, which references the past without compromising compelling design.  

What's so interesting is that the archive project will be ongoing and the CSM students will continue to source vintage Pringle pieces from all over the world to build up this catalogue and enrichen it.  Likewise, this capsule collection created by the MA students will also live on in the form of a pop-up shop tour over the next year as well as actually going into stores in time for S/S 12.  This project may not have been deliberately timed with Pringle's new creative director chapter but it certainly falls right in line with the brand's rejuvenation process, whereby interesting collaborative projects with an institution such as Central Saint Martins are not conceived there for the sake of showy appearance, but actually benefit both school and brand.