You know I love pattern puzzles. I’m revisiting one I’d mentioned the other day to explore it more fully.
Today’s pattern puzzle is from designers Julian Roberts and Sophie Cheung (you’ll notice he’s smoking), proprietors of Blow. Julian and Sophie also run a pattern cutting school, a site you just have to visit. The top secret password is “bananamilkshake”. Don’t tell anyone. Take a look at this pattern:
Photo courtesy of Blow
Julian’s basic cutting concept can be summed up with this depiction…
Photo courtesy of Blow
…which really isn’t much news to anyone who’s been ignoring the concept of side seams or worked with bias to any degree but Julian really pushes the limits. Well, at least I’ve been ignoring side seams; they’re so template-ish, don’t you agree? Most clothing looks to have been stamped out like sheet metal.
Anyway, try bending your head around some of Julian’s work. While at the pattern school site, be sure to see the student projects for some visuals. Speaking of visuals, you can view past lines from here. You’ll have to let your cursor rest in the middle of the image for the visual map with hyperlinks to pop up. Sophie is new to the venture and this site includes all of Julian’s previous work including his first line Nothing Nothing which he sold on ebay no less. While the site is avante garde, I found it difficult to navigate but then flickering images push my visual stress buttons. Clicking on the red dress project loads a page of thumbnails. I think I like this one the best. I wonder what it’d look like in contrasting colors? Here’s another page of thumbnails. I’d think anyone would agree these styles are constructurally unique.
Here’s a bio of the couple and their contact information:
BLOW
First Floor
15 Percy St
London
W1T 1DS
Tel: 020 7436 9449
Fax: 020 7436 7027
Email
Website
I LOVE THIS!!!
I love the work..I love these people.. after reading all this, I want to go to England and just wander in and out of shops..
THANK YOU..for such an inspiring turn-on!
Ditto on the above comment.
And despite the risk of sounding like a mindless groupie, I absolutely love this blog. This is one of the few I read faithfully. Thanks!
I found a less visually disturbing way to view their rendered styles via a tip from a loyal reader at finalfashion.blogspot.com. The link is http://www.thefashionspot.com/forums/f60/nothing-nothing-26232.html
Thank you, Kathleen. This is a fabulous link. I haven’t read the site for a week and I have so much to catch up on.
Julian is answering questions at the Nothing Nothing thread on the Fashion Spot!
And i’m here too… nosing around and happy to have sparked some small interest:)
Isn’t technology becoming interesting!
I will continue contributing to thefashionspot thread (link posted by final_fashion above), and will be answering some of the interesting points Kathleen has made there soon.
I did intend to start my own blog on http://www.julianand.com, but seeing as everyone else is doing such a great job with theirs & my sites do like to flash about a bit.. i may as well leach on and contribute from the outside.
Thanks & best wishes for 2006!:)
Julian
Hey Julian! Thanks for stopping by. I hope you’ll jump into other discussions as you see fit.
If any of you are interested in discussing Julian’s cutting method, do stop by the Nothing Nothing thread on Fashion Spot. And thanks to final fashion for the tip.