Custom Textiles for Jacket and Blouse
Schminke Studio, Seattle, Washington, 2001

Natural textures were the inspiration for the fabric design of this jacket, blouse and scarf ensemble.

A commercial sewing pattern was scanned on a 50" wide Contex scanner. The digital file of the scan was brought into Photoshop so the fabric images could be created directly on the clothing pattern to create a unique, one-of-a-kind design.

Starting from the artist's personal photographs, two related designs were developed to work on two silks chosen for their distinctive surfaces; highly textured silk noil for the jacket and smooth silk habitai for the blouse. Shown below left, a water pattern is developed and applied to the blouse pattern and a matching scarf. On the right, the center panels of the jacket are ready for sewing. Value and placement of textured patterns onto garment echo animal fur patterns.