As you may have seen on www.weaveshed.co.uk and on our twitter feed @gainsweaving, we are currently advertising for a new Designer to join our team at Gainsborough. Designing at Gainsborough is incredibly rewarding, but it is essential to have a well-rounded set of skills to apply to the wide variety of tasks we must undertake.
Photograph from the London Transport Museum
One such task is our impending residency at the London Transport Museum from 13th – 17th December, and we are very excited about our upcoming week. We plan to maximize this opportunity and develop a capsule collection of three designs inspired by TFL and the Moquette fabrics that have been used since the 1920s on London Transport.
Fabrics selected from our Archive as part of our research
Research is a fundamental part of the Design process and usually the better the research, the better the results. We intend not only to satisfy the brief provided to all participants of Weaving Futures, but also to make Gainsborough our central focus for how we approach this collection. We have plenty of information at our disposal and have been busy visiting the London Transport Museum, their Archive and of course TFL. From our social media this week, you may also have seen the parallels we have begun to draw between the London Transport Museum and Gainsborough; vintage magazines, historical textile books and fabrics in our archive that we have developed for alternative forms of transport, from the Royal Coaches to RMS Titanic.
Fabric sample woven for the RMS Titanic
This collaboration between Gainsborough and London Transport promises to produce some great results. So pop it in your diary and watch this space, or if you think you have what it takes to join our team, get in touch! Either way, we hope to see you soon.