Anita Quansah: On Being a Fashion Textile Designer...

Everybody wants to be a Marc Jacob; hardly anyone wants to be a Vlisco, making and manufacturing the actual textiles that are so integral to a Fashion Designer's job.

Thankfully, there are creatives like Anita Horsfall, the Chelsea College of Art and Design alum and London-based Textile Designer, who sees the great virtue in pursuing the path of Textile Design within the Fashion Industry.

Not too long ago, Horsfall introduced me to Anita Quansah, her line of hand-crafted necklaces and textiles - she incorporates recycled and vintage materials into most of the intricate designs. Gorgeous stuff, I tell you!

So I immediately invited her to chat with us about her process and experiences as as a Textile Designer; along the way, she's worked with Dianne Von Furstenburg, DKNY, Christian Lacroix and others.

Here's what she had to say:

You studied Fashion and Textile Design formally: Can you give the Au Courant readers a bit of insight into what you learned?

Sure thing! During College, I received a solid creative training and I learnt how to be a good designer, basically. I received insight on what the course and career path entailed, and the processes involved in creating and designing using various computer programs, equipments, techniques and such.

How valuable was the formal training in getting you prepared for your career?

It really helped me to build a solid foundation for what I'm doing today. That training provided me with a good support system, and it exposed me to facilities and exhibitions that broadened my design skills, helping me to discover who I really was as a designer. I had the creative ability, but I really needed that guidance and my course definitely pointed me in the right directions.

Also my collaborations with other designers taught me to appreciate my own work a lot more. I've learnt so much from just working and liaising with them. Their expectations and style of working allowed me to push my creative level to the extreme, to be freer, yet structured in my design style, allowing me to create sumptuous pieces that are textural with a contemporary edge.

So what exactly does Textile Design entail: How to you actually 'create' your materials?

In Textiles, there are different areas of specialism: Print, Knit, Weave and Stitch, i.e. Embroidery. At Chelsea College, we were given the opportunity to explore everything; after the first year, you'd decide which path you want to explore further. In my case, I chose stitch.

I incorporated unconventional materials into my designs which to some was a shock at the time... Then, I started to use recycled materials primarily - along with some contemporary materials - and that's when I found my style and technique. I love collecting vintage materials because of their rich history and I often work them into my designs to make them more interesting and multi-layered.

The fashion [textile] recycling process is a rather long and complicated one, though. Because my pieces are are one-off, luxury designs, they take some time to create. Some pieces can take a few days, some hours, and some weeks. For the interior and apparel pieces, each design is individually hand embellished, using reclaimed and vintage fabrics to add texture quite like a painter adding colours to a canvas with different strokes.

It's all done by dissecting, cutting and layering bits of materials using a variety of techniques, similar to what's done with appliqué, fabric manipulation and embroidery.

And what about production: Do you work with mills/factories at any stage in your process or do you handle it all on your own? Tell us more about this...

At the moment I work solely on my own - no factories or mills. I very much prefer working this way; I'm passionate about what I do and I believe that getting somebody else to do all the designing and creating takes away the passion. It’s not easy, having to do it all by myself, but I'm equally skilled at multi-tasking, so it's all good!

Finally, any words of advice for anyone thinking of exploring Textile Design professionally?

It may sound corny, but just dream. it, believe it and achieve it. Go to a good Design university that gives you the technical skills and a strong foundation. I really do think that I'm living proof that if you're passionate about something  and you put your mind and hard work into it, you can achieve it. Good luck!

Shop the Anita Quansah London collection online at NJAL or Shrimpton Couture.

NB Images Courtesy Anita Quansah