April meeting - Val Hughes

At our April meeting we were delighted to welcome Val Hughes, a well known textile artist, designer and tutor.  

She brought her 'Water, Snow and Ice' collection of costumes together with beautiful shawls, cloths and wall hangings which were inspired by the weather and the Pennine landscape.  The collection was created for the Charles Henry Foyle Award for Stitched Textiles and then developed for the Madeira Show catwalk.  It was later shown at The Mall Galleries in London with the shawls and cloths used as backdrops in the galleries.

The dress on the left is 'Waterfall' and its intricate construction can be seen in the photo on the right.  Next to 'Waterfall' is 'Snow', constructed from mulberry silk paper and overlaid with crystal organza.  Over the organza are individually free-machine embroidered snowflakes, worked on soluble fabric, with snowflakes freely attached and moving with the dress.  

Here is the final dress in the collection: 'Ice'.  Made from cellophane to reflect the light in the same way as ice, and overlaid with crystal organza, topped with free-machine embroidery.

Following the Madeira Show Val developed the collection with these costumes.    They were created using nuno felting, a technique which bonds wool and other fibres into a sheer fabric such as chiffon or organza, forming a cloth.

The first dress is 'Blue Lagoon' made from discarded samples stitched together.  Next to it are 'Silent Depths' and 'Whispering Shadows'.

Here is a close-up of the top of the bodice of 'Whispering Shadows', showing the complex and intricate work involved.
















Val has also created other costume collections withone of the most well-known being the Anne Boleyn Collection.  If you visit Val's web site you will be able to look at more of her work and read about her journey through textiles: www.valhughes.com