texture

Hawthorne & Heaney visits McQueen’s Old Bond Street Show Space

February 6, 2020 by Natasha Searls-Punter

London is very lucky to be able to offer a wealth of great free exhibitions and museums on many subjects. This open to all attitude really helps to keep feeding the minds of our designers and innovaters that one can go out and have your eyes opened to all sorts of information. One such jem that might be a little lesser known is the top floor of the flagship Alexander McQueen store on Old Bond Street.

They have started to use the stop floor as more of an exhibition type space, sharing insights from the vast archives that the house of McQueen holds. At the moment, the space is dedicated to roses, curated by the Creative Director Sarah Burton.

What we found really special about this space, as an embroiderer in particular is that you can get right up close to the pieces to see the details often lost in show and large scale exhibitions. Something that we found even with very well done exhibitions like Savage Beauty. In addition to this they are sharing a lot of the background research and technical craftsmanship that goes into making a collection and show with this kind of dramatic results. There are development moodboards, fitting notes, embroidery placements onto pattern pieces and draping directed onto the model. There is also a viewing booth with footage from the shows to fully round out the experience and see it in the final context for which it was intended to be consumed.

If you find yourself in the area, it’s definately worth a trip it to see some beautiful things and get some of the background scoop on how these things all come together. The notes and quotes from behind the scenes really give you a sense of being emersed into their world. We are already looking forward

Hawthorne & Heaney for Watts and Co

January 10, 2020 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Last year, we had the pleasure of making this banner embroidery for legendary company, Watts and Co. It is for the Church of the Incarnation, Highlands, NC. The church’s emblem has been embroidered onto exclusive Watts Blue Bellini silk damask, finished with silk bullion fringe. ⁠⠀

We included lots of raisings and textures in this piece to make it look as rich and luxurious as possible. We are particulally pleased with the fish and the cross’s halo, what’s your favourite bit?

Hawthorne & Heaney for Kalms

September 20, 2018 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Hawthorne and Heaney are very fortunate have a a great variety of work that comes through our door which means that you may have unknowing seen our work.

Earlier this year, we worked on a piece for the advertising campaign for ‘Kalms’. They wanted to create an embroidery of their slogan onto the duvet with the real life packet.

The colour of the stitching was very important that it would photograph true against the colours of the packaging so we spent some time testing a few threads before settling on this one as the strongest option. The texture of the stitching was also very important to them as they wanted it to have a very hand embroidered feel, but the stitching is done by machine. Therefore we chose a cotton thread which is also used for hand embroidering and paid special attention to the direction of the stitched to make them look like they flow naturally, like ink from a pen.

We were very please with the end result, and feel that we achieved what we were trying to achieve with this project. Have you seen it about?

Hawthorne & Heaney for Charlotte Stockdale’s Met Gala Outfit

May 2, 2017 by Natasha Searls-Punter

The first Monday in May each year is always a prestigious day in the fashion calender as it marks the opening of the Metropolitan Museum’s new exhibition and therefore the Met Gala. This year, the exhibition is dedicated to Comme des Garcon’s Rei Kawakubo and is entitled ‘The Art of In-Between’. Taking its theme for the Gala from this year’s muse, the attendees dressed to impress in their own interpretations of Avant-Garde.

You may remember a series of silk jackets we did for the Accessories Brand Chaos last year, this year’s Met Gala gave us the opportunity to work with Chaos again as we were embellishing the outfit of Chaos’s Charlotte Stockdale.

They wanted to create a black on black piece so we made the embellishments all about the texture and relief, working with different weights and qualities of thread to provide definition. Some sections were super dense and flat to the fabric whilst others were given height of various levels within the machine embroidery.

Some sections were cut open to provide another texture with fluffy edges which creates a very matte deep black effect against some of the shinier threads.

The whole back piece centers around the Chaos logo which was treated as if it were a traditional heraldic piece. This became the base on which we could build by hand. A variety of beads were applied into the machine embroidery such as bugle beads and cut jet.

As with most of our bespoke pieces, Charlotte’s initials were integrated into the design in the same heraldic style as the mantelling around the logo.

I think you will agree that the final effect is pretty phenomenal when the machine embroidery, hand embroidery, beading and tassels all come together.

For more details about Chaos and the products they offer, check out their website here.

Hawthorne & Heaney in Conversation with Laura Lees

April 5, 2017 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Fellow embroiderer, artist and designer Laura Lees is usually found creating highly colourful, fine art pieces furniture pieces but she took a little time away from her usual pursuits to speak with us about her work:

Hawthorne & Heaney: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today, we’d like to start by asking you the question we get asked quite a lot of how did you get into embroidery originally?

Laura Lees: I applied for a city and guilds embroidery course when I was 17 and fell in love with it then. I found my skills at drawing not exceptional but confident. I found a new level of ability with the needle and thread superior than that of drawing with a pencil.

H&H: And what is it that inspires you?

LL: The way you can transform something from the ordinary to the extraordinary. I love the feel of the threads, the sound the scissors make when they’re cutting fabric, the quality of line and the battering noise and speed of my beloved Bernina industrial sewing machine. most importantly, I love the clarity of heart and mind, the skill involved and the the fact that i am always learning.

H&H: What would you like your students to take away from your class?

LL: A real sense of achievement, pride and enjoyment.

H&H: Where can we see more of your works?

LL: I am preparing for an exhibition to take place at the end of the year, inspired by dutch author Joris Luyendijk s book ‘Swimmimg with Sharks’ which demistifys the financial world of the city banks. This resonated deeply with me, having amongst many others lost my fashion label in the 2008 crash. I explore the ‘smoke and mirrors’ architectural language of finance by descending on what must be the least understood environment in Europe: the City of London. Taking the habitat of the so-called and self-described Masters of the Universe as my inspiration and translating the visceral world that lives and survives by opacity into tangeable abstract textiles.

H&H: Anything coming up in the pipeline you can share with us?

LL: I have recently launched The Mighty Stitch corporate workshops, The Mighty Stitch embroidery workshops teach teams a new skill, engendering engagement and motivation, ultimately creating a bespoke embroidered piece of art for your workplace. • Simple, supportive instruction • No experience needed, anyone can take part
Participants are encouraged to be playful and experimental – the workshops facilitate collaboration, communication, storytelling, mindfulness, and, most importantly, making a mess! Enhanced work environment we all need a bit of that, i think .

H&H: Thanks again, I’m sure we will be seeing much more of you with all that come up!

Laura also has a Workshop coming up in April which will give the participants the opportunity to be a part of Laura’s work as the pieces created on the day will be encorporated into a new piece which will be exhibited at the RIBA as part of the London Festival of Architecture. Follow the link to secure your place for this intriguing and unusual opportunity:

‘The Riba workshop is a full day, immersed in urban embroidery. We will focus on how a city evolves through its inhabitants by learning freehand machine embroidery, hand stitching and applique. The outcome is to create an embroidered image of a building or architectural structure.

Afterwards, I will explore how a city is fabricated by stitching together the individual and diverse pieces made by workshop participants into a new work to be exhibited a the RIBA as part of @londonfestivalofarchitecture.

All artwork will be returned to the participants after the exhibition.
This workshop is part of the programme of events inspired by the exhibition ‘Mies van der Rohe and James Stirling: Circling the Square’.

Urban Tapestry with Laura Lees, 22 & 23 April, 11am to 4pm
RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London, W1B 1AD
Booking at architecture.com/Workshop ‘

All images credited to Laura Lees