DEC4 the Blythe house

The Blythe House is one of the Victoria and Albert Museum's growing archives holdings, mainly with Art and Designs collections, the building looked very smart on a cloudy day and entering is another feeling, seeing all the desigh collections on the wall as you went past the corridors to the room where we had detailed looks at some precious textiles pattern collections from the victoria time till recent 30 years.

they told us about how these samples were kept in a well-managed sample book, one company called Heals has got a few large sample books in very good condition, recorded their designs for more than 50 years. it is a good idea to keep your own sample book updated for when you need to find out about one single pattern.

I also had looked at some beautiful weaving samples with blurry image weaved on them, I was attracted to the technique and wanted to experiment with it.

It was a very impressive experience to come cross such large amount of design collections, I enjoyed it and glad to be able to use it later on as my reference for my work.

Ethnical Fashion

The Global Sourcing Marketplace Event

We always hear words like fairtrade,organic farming and so on in the news but often don't have a very clear clue of how it works for people who benefit from it and this event offered me a chance to understand the sustainable textiles.
They believe that this is the way to go for fashion industry in the future, or in another word, considering returning to what fashion once was, making clothes and accessories out of natural materials that give no harm to the environment. At the same time, in that way people get to be provided with better working conditions and higher wages.

There are a couple of companies that intrigued me, the Ecoboard,a fibre board made from different sort of waste or recycled material, it is a very sustainable way of making cardboards and you won't be able to tell the difference from those normal ones, they are either bio-degradable or recyclable. The artisan life, unique handcrafted jewellry imported from South America, all these ivory looking accessories are made of a kind of fruit called Tagua that comes in different colors, so organic and clever.
No like all the other kinds of fruits, they would go rotten before you get to eat them, imagine, how great it would be if you can save them before they are wasted by transforming them into something to wear.

The Faitrade Certified Cotton appears to be more sustainable than the other one from the cotton company called BioRe.