JESSICA LIGHT FOR JOHN LEWIS.

 I grew up with John Lewis. The Oxford Street branch was just a hop, skip and a jump on the 53 bus from Camden Town. I was at my most frequent a customer during my teenage years when I started making my own clothes and their fabric department [then the whole ground floor]became my sanctuary of choice when I bunked off school. For me it was an enchanted forest of fabrics. From everyday corduroys of every hue to papery Honan silk that rustled under one's touch.

I spent so much time there that even my peers began to notice my absence from the usual adolescent revelries. 'Where's Jessie? 'She's gone to John Lewis...again!'. I was even teased mercilessly by the boy next door about it, just before he and his pesky mate emptied my underwear drawer out of the window into the street below, causing the tree in our front garden to suddenly sprout bizarre bra and knicker shaped blooms.
The John Lewis building is so familiar to me that I sometimes forget it also introduced me to Barbara Hepworth, who went on to become one of my favorite artists.

Barbara Hepworth sculpture on the side of John Lewis, Oxford Street

Barbara Hepworth studied at the Leeds School of Art, where she met Henry Moore who she was to be associated with artistically for the most of her career. She continued her training at the Royal Collage of Art, London.

Working in mainly stone and wood applying carving techniques, she soon became one of the leading exponents of the abstract art movement in Britain in the 1930's.

She married her second husband, artist Ben Nicolson, in 1932 who exposed her to wider European art movements. They later moved to St Ives, Cornwall, where Barbara died tragically in 1975 in a fire in her studio.

For me her work has always exuded a warmth and aesthetic perfection of form that comes from her complete sympathy for the materials she used. Unlike Moore, whose sculpture I find leaden and cold [although I love his drawings and textile designs which have life and vibrancy]Hepworth's work pulls you in to have a physical connection with it. You just want to hug it, and if you are ever in St Ives go and see her studio and garden which is now a wonderful museum.

Examples of Hepworths work.

So it seems quite apt that my first foray into the retail world should be with John Lewis, a store it seems, that not only I feel, but everyone I speak to, still holds an affection and trust with it's customers today as it always did.

Above and below,

Jessica Light Trims and Tassels products now available in 

John Lewis, Oxford Street and Edinburgh branches and on the John Lewis website

And what happened to the boy next door? Well he became a very talented graphic designer with his own highly successful practice, 01.02,and who, incidentally, designed my logo. Ta dah!

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS.....

.... apart from a good rest, which I won't get because the only candle we'll be burning at both ends this Christmas will be in the workshop on production... is that for 2013 to carry on in the same vein as the latter half of 2012.

It seems a rocket has gone off at Jessica Light Trims and Tassels and hurtled us into a stratosphere of order after order after order. Hurrah.

Our diffusion range, available on Jessica Light Shop, has been a cosmic success with weekly sales. In fact we haven't been able to make them fast enough and our passementerie jewels have been orbiting the globe. From Aus to US, Ireland to Holland, all over the UK, hotels to homes are have been invaded by bright, bouncy aliens of the tasseltastic species.

Our diffusion key tassels.

The bespoke side is also flourishing and one's weavers thighs have had a wonderful work out this year with a plethora of orders from new and old clients. The Old Codger and I wove until exhaustion and very nearly came to blows, and could have done with some loom counseling, but we treadled our way though the meteor shower.

A bespoke trim being woven.

Going into 2013, an order for 24 bespoke rosettes for a dining room in Palm Beach, Florida

Out and about I did a live weave at The Cottage Project pop up space in The New Balance Olympic hospitality suite at the top of The Millbank Tower. With it's beautiful 260 views of London I insisted on pointing out the hospital I was born in to anyone who came within a 20m radius of me

The Old Codger

Above, dressing the loom.
Below, weaving.
Both images copyright The Cottage Project

A lovely London summers day

You can see the hospital I was born in in this picture

London at dusk

We also showed independently during The London Design Festival collaborating with Precious McBane on Gone to Earth. We presented two new collections in an interior instillation which featured The Tassily chair.

The Tassily

Looking ahead through the fringe of Christmas future to 2013 we see on the horizon an exciting product launch for a major retailer in February, the unveiling of a second diffusion range in late spring and many more trimalicious comets taking off from the Urban Croft and swooshing through the sky to the outer reaches of the Universe. The futures bright- The futures green.

The Tassel Queen Of Bethnal Green

wishes one and all

Merry Yuletide and a Happy New Year

xxx

JESSICA LIGHT FOR VIOLET AND GEORGE

It's not often than that we here at Jessica Light Trims and Tassels get to see the fruits of our labour so it was lovely to visit Violet And George's new shop recently and see what magic they had conjured up using our bespoke trims.

Above,

Cushions trimmed in bespoke ruche.

Above,

Lampshades using bespoke trims as decorative features.

Interior tailors Violet and George are renown for their original and creative interiors. Set up in 2009 by Nicky Mudie, the Violets soon established themselves as the by-word in delicious soft furnishings using Nicky's keen eye for sourcing sumptuous textiles. Their design flair has been carried through to a range of unique products and the opening, in September, of their beautiful shop.

All products available from;

www.violetandgeorge.com

or

Violet and George,

57 St Helens Gardens,

London W10 6LN

All images copyright Violet and George.

LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL 2012 REVIEW

GONE TO EARTH

The London Design Festival is always a thriving hive of over 250 exhibitions and events, big and small, celebrating the creative diversity and talent this country has in abundance.

This year for the first time Jessica Light went off-piste, teaming up with interior designers Precious McBane to host Gone To Earth, an instillation in an old machinists shop in Clerkenwell.
Visitors were greeted by 'The Tassily', a reinterpretation by McBanes Sophia Wimpenny and Jessica Light of the classic 'Wassily' chair by Marcel Breuer. Their take was inspired by how to showcase Light's new Potsdam collection and the furniture of Carlo Bugatti. A case of not up-cycling but luxe-cycling.

Below left, the Gone To Earth window. Below right, The Tassily.

Below, detail of The Tassily showing Jessica's horsehair trims.

The visitors journey then encountered more of the Potsdam collection in the form of  a majestic tieback holding a swathe of Olicana linen which led to a cabinet of curiosities.

The Popova Tieback

Cushions made from Chinese burnished indigo highlighting more trims from the Potsdam collection.

The cabinet display, designed by Sophia Wimpenny, was a feast of bizarre nature under bell jars or sitting regally on miniature cushions. Trims were contorted to resemble undiscovered exotic flora, fauna, and marine life. A magical tableau to represent the themes behind Jessica's 2nd new collection, Frome

All images above, examples from the cabinet.

Finally more luxe-cycling in the form of two Bertoria chairs trimmed with delicate shredded fringes from the Frome collection.

Below, the Bertoria chairs

BIG THANK YOU TO;

Everyone who came to see us,

Precious McBane,

House and Garden, Elle Decoration, and HeartHome for their support,

my intern Ffion.

What's hatching for next year?

You'll have to wait and see.

TENT LONDON 2012

Like a salmon going back to it's river to spawn I had to visit Tent London. It was strange going there as audience rather than performer but it confirmed what I've always thought about this show- that it's like the Red Arrows flying overhead- loud, exciting, and breaking the sound barrier.

If last year was about textiles, this year was about process, materials and sustainability, which determined many designers product outcome. Three good examples of these themes were Morie Nishimura's exquisite hand-cut metal mirrors- hinged circles of highly polished brass were settled on his stand walls like golden butterflies basking in the sun- Afid Design's traditionally crafted oiled oak furniture that felt cool and silky and Mini Moderns new re-cycled paint range.

Chairs by Afid Design.

How on earth do you recycle paint? I thought, conjuring up an image of it being laboriously scraped off walls, to then be boiled down in large vats in a lab similar to the one in 'Carry On Screaming' manned by Kenneth Williams and Fenella Fielding. Actually it's much more major than that as Keith from the Moderns explained. We throw out tons of unused paint every year that is just dumped into landfill and it is this which gets recycled into their new  range. A lively fresh colour palette, with names like Tangerine Dream, is coordinated with Mini Moderns other products, but all the shades stand up well on their own.

Mini Moderns new paint range.

Of course there was still the off the wall idiosyncratic element that Tent is known for like the colourful woven bamboo [more eco-friendly materials]chairs from W&Q seen below [I'll also have one of their clutch bags please]

I didn't show at Tent this year, but like a red wine stain, you just can't get rid of me and I snuck onto Curiousa and Curiousa's stand in the guise of the 2.5m depth dip-dyed fringe we wove for Esther and the tassels she used to adorn her hand-blown glass shades.

Above, 2.5m long fringe on Curiousa and Curiousa

Every year I always come away inspired and impressed from The London Design Festival, but there is usually one thing that always sticks out for me. Last year it was Front's beautiful carpets and their stands at SuperBrands and Decorex again wowed me speechless. This year though it was a print that caught my eye, Garbo's Eye in fact, by The Cecil Beaton Fabric Collection printed by Beaudesart. Taken from a drawing of Greta Garbo's eyes in Cecil Beaton's sketch book the resulting print is a surreal mass of wide eyes following your every move and reflects Beaton's obsession with Garbo [there are even suggestions that the two had a very unlikely affair]

Garbo's Eye