The amount of work was slightly overwhelming. However, a lot of the designers were there, and we got to talk to them. One of my favourites was this lady who went to the Hampton Palace University of Needlework and had created a child’s jacket (see to the left), inspired by a story she wrote about Bushy Park, and spent over 500 hours embroidering detail onto the jacket inspired by the fairytale she wrote. Another thing that I loved about this was that she included elements of the history of Hampton Court in the embroidery, such as the famous Anne Boleyn necklace. I felt that it was such a nice little touch on the jacket and the amount of work that was put in was already stunning but she brought in the history of her university.

Another designer that I got to talk to was Grace Arrowsmith, whose work I adored. She was creating protest fashion about the problems in the sheep wool industry as she is a sixth-generation sheep farmer. She highlighted issues such as the fact that sheep farmers used to be able to live off the income that they got but now with the rate of one fleece being 14p, and the fact that many sheep farmers are having to burn their leftover flocks it is no longer possible to live off sheep farming. Using sheep’s wool from her sheep on her farm she used digital embroidery to create intricate patterns on them and created information about each sheep and how much that piece of wool would have cost which for these pieces to the left were about 1 or 2 pence. I found it depressing that such a useful resource was not being used in the fashion industry properly.

Another piece that I like was this I believe upcycled piece, but I could not find the artist so I am not sure. But I like the patchwork, and chunky element to it and love the different techniques they have used to put together this piece as upcycling is something that I particularly love to use in my work, I just found it tremendous.