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Something a bit different from me today... Last month I was asked by my lovely friend Alice Hume to assist on a big commission she was offered. As it seems to always be the case, the brief came to Alice with quite a short turnaround time and typically just as she'd booked a well needed holiday with her boyfriend, not wanting to miss out on a fantastic opportunity Alice asked if I could help her and of course I jumped at the chance. I should give a bit of context I feel before I continue... Alice is a wonderful and talented weaver who I met when I attended one of her navajo weaving courses a few years ago. Alice and I clicked and we've been friends ever since. Alice is one of 12 studio tenants at the amazing Hotwalls Studios in Old Portsmouth. The commission was from the international brand allbirds and the brief was to help create an iconic window display for their brand new, just about to open, first UK store in the amazing Covent Garden.  Allbirds launched back in 2016; the brainchild of New Zealander Tim Brown. Tim came up with the genius idea of creating a sustainable new type of footwear made from merino wool. Tim later teamed up with Joey Zwillinger, an engineer and renewables expert and together, they crafted a revolutionary wool fabric made specifically for footwear. The outcome? An entirely new category of shoes inspired by natural materials, and an ongoing mantra to create better things in a better way. Following the launch of their first UK store The Evening Standard wrote a fab article about their rise of allbrids and their brand new Covent Garden store which you can read here.  The brief Alice received was comically brief... 'sheep and fluffy', the guys wanted a window to represent each of the three materials they now make their shoes from; wool, trees and sugar {find out more here} Alice was obviously given 'wool' and was asked to create 9 large wool hangings from soft and fluffy merino wool. Alice came up with a design just before she hopped on her flight and sent it over and I got cracking... We corresponded throughout Alice's holiday (Sorry Niall) and the moment she was back we spent a weekend together finishing them all off... I had the pleasure of working in Alice's fab studio whilst she was away and enjoyed every minute if it (I officially miss having a studio) Here are a selection of photos I snapped whilst making... I mainly stuck to making the more simple weaves, soumaks and tasselled ones and left the more complex twisted yarn ones to Alice who is obviously much more talented then me! We had a limited colour palette of cream, ivory and grey and the finished pieces were just what was requested, soft and fluffy and utterly representative of the materials used in the shoes. There were so textural and gorgeous I kept thinking how amazing they'd look as a ceremony backdrop... If you'd like something similar get in touch and let me know... I was so nice to create something so big and it was lovely to be able to use the loom Maxwell made me again! <3 On Sunday Alice transferred them all on to dowels ready to be hung and on Sunday they were collected by courier and taken to London. Alice went up to the store that week and assisted with the hanging. She also got to return a bit later once opened to see the store and the finished window display... I've yet to have a chance to visit and see but I can already see from Alice's photos the finished result was brilliant! Before they headed to their new home photographer Alex Fountain captured the weavings! (Thank you Alex) You can check out more of his work on Instgram and on his website.
And the finished store and store front, {photos by Alice} cool huh? Thanks to Alice to asking to to collaborate and to Allbirds for making cool shoes! 
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