With a passion for telling stories through contrasting textures and colour, Katie Harrison is a woven textile designer based in Brighton. During her placement year in 2018/19, Katie spent time working with Dobert Textil Group in Barcelona, Burberry in London, PVH in Hong Kong, Malhia Kent in Paris and Dash & Miller in Bristol. This diverse range of Woven Textiles and Fashion experience enabled Katie to further her skills in preparation for her final year of studying.

Whilst back studying at the University of Brighton for her BA (Hons) in Fashion Textiles with Business Studies, Katie began her research surrounding Hong Kong. Her collection of womenswear SS21 fabrics draws inspiration from the contrasting order and chaos of the vibrant city.

Katie’s collection, ‘Controlled Chaos through the Textures of Hong Kong’, explores the cities controlled chaos through its disproportionate sky line, particularly looking at tower blocks, considering their multitude, grid-like structure, height and scale, lattice network and contrasts between blocks.

Katie used a combination of natural and synthetic fibres to mimic the conflicting textures of the city. The hand woven fabrics explore monofilament, found plastics and cotton blocks creating little pouches, floats, and a layered translucent effect. To achieve these contrasts Katie wove her samples using double cloth block set ups with monofilament on the top cloth to create a pocket layer. Experimenting with varying stripe blocks using strong pastel colours and an extra warp set up combining plastics and natural fibres enabled Katie to play with scale, texture and colour.