Wool Week 2020

Wool Week 2020 / Student Competition 

Margo Selby with Alternative Flooring

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Campaign for Wool – to celebrate UK Wool Week 2020 (5th–18th October) – Margo Selby collaborated with the British carpet manufacturer Alternative Flooring to launch a competition for textiles undergraduate students at UK universities: to conceive an original design for production.

The competition celebrates British design and British manufacture, and of course wool itself – a natural, renewable and biodegradable fibre, that has many health benefits for individuals, living/working spaces and the planet. Coinciding as it did with the UK Covid 19 pandemic lockdown, it has been a creative lifeline and joy to us in so many ways!

We are so pleased to announce the winner of the competition is:

Louisa Knapp

Final year Textiles Practice BSc student at University of Huddersfield.

With her beautiful design:

FIBONACCI

Louisa’s prize is to have her design produced as limited editions with UK mills and sold through our platforms – and to receive ongoing mentoring from Margo.

It was a compex brief: to design for the Campaign for Wool, and have in mind the Alternative Flooring and Margo Selby brands equally, with all that entails technically and aesthetically. Louisa entitled her submission “Stay at Home”, and her timely design was born out of the new realities that lockdown presented, addressing the shift towards working-from-home and, with the concurrent (and arguably linked) environmental crisis, the urgent need for symbiosis between the natural environment and our working environment, in the micro and macrocosm. Fascinated by the psychological concept ‘biophilia’ (humanity’s deep need for connection to the natural world), and combining this with a visual effect reminiscent of 1960s Op Art, Louisa has created a mesmerizing motif. She eloquently pairs the beauty of mathematical patterns – prevalent in the natural world, and so suited to weave – with a bold style of graphic design – very appealing to Margo. The themes Louisa explores chime so well with the material of wool – a restorative combination.

“The eye can travel over the surface in a way parallel to the way it moves over nature. It should feel caressed and soothed, experience frictions and ruptures, glides and drift.” 

– Bridget Riley, referenced by Louisa in her proposal.

Read more about Louisa’s work at www.knapptextiles.com

Margo has commissioned a limited production  of 100 metres of Louisa’s FIBONACCI fabric, woven in wool by Botany Weaving Mill in Dublin – and it is now available to purchase as meterage or cushions from our website or directly from Louisa [ www.knapptextiles.com ]. We are thrilled to work with Botany – a world-leader in industrial weaving, known particularly for their high-quality textiles for airline upholstery – and hope to do further projects with UK producers and manufacturers.

Mentoring, and nurturing new talent, is central to Margo’s ethos as a practitioner. She feels that she was very supported in the early years of establishing her business, by the Ann Sutton Foundation, Design Nation and the Crafts Council, and wants to pass this on. Margo has taught and mentored at art schools including Central St Martins, the Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths and West Dean College of Arts – and in her own studio workshops. In usual times we welcome weavers, professional and amateur, to the studio from across the world – and we often have interns on placement from UK universities. Margo loves to talk and meet people – and nothing excites her more than new talent.

Margo will be continuing her mentoring relationship with Louisa throughout the academic year, until Louisa’s graduation in 2021 – supporting her development as a designer, and preparing her to work in the industry.

The Margo Selby & Alternative Flooring student collaboration competition is part of a programme of projects celebrating the 10th anniversary of the launch of Campaign for Wool – these will all be showcased during Wool Week 2020 (5th–18th October).

“Winning this competition has been a wonderful opportunity to springboard my designs into the commercial arena… 

For me, wool means a sustainable and fruitful future career. I can’t imagine a better fibre to take centre stage in the increasing demand for a more renewable, greener and sustainable world we want for future generations. 

Fittingly, it was the reputation of the worsted wool industry in Huddersfield that brought me here to study. I hope in the near future, as I complete my studies at the University of Huddersfield, that the booming abundance of mills and design studios will keep me employed within Yorkshire.

For me, weave is the perfect balance between art and science. … an even split between the creative and the mathematical, the experimental and the accurate. This has without doubt, impacted on the kind of designer I have become and shows how apparently diverse schools of thought can forge innovative ways of approaching woven textile design.”

– Louisa Knapp

www.campaignforwool.org

www.alternativeflooring.com

www.margoselby.com

www.botanyweaving.com

www.knapptextiles.com

Click HERE for a virtual tour of each of the winning designs from the 2020 Campaign For Wool Student Competition