Saffron Rutter is a sustainable fashion design graduate based in London. Her work carefully amalgamates traditional craft with innovative technology to produce unique garments which approach sustainable design from new perspectives.

The work showcased here is from her final BA collection at Kingston School Of Art, entitled ‘Reasons To Be Fearful’.

Reasons to be fearful is a sustainable mens/womenswear collection that explores the relationship between fear and clothing. Textiles have been used throughout history to explore distress; Amish quilts with one purposeful ‘error’ so as to not upset any higher powers, blankets handmade by soldiers to overcome trauma and belts embroidered by the wives and mothers of Samurais to wish them luck in battle formed some of the inspiration for the knitwear samples, produced on a domestic machine using traditional punch card techniques, as well as a printed silk lining directly inspired by these soldier’s blankets. Alongside these is a ‘stained glass’ latex coat, which uses offcut and damaged scraps of latex which may otherwise be discarded, and refashions them into individually cut pieces with religious connotations. The silhouettes of these garments plus the others shown are also inspired by clothes which highlight fear- uniforms, mourning dress and religious garbs.

The collection is designed to be as sustainable as possible, using damaged or scrap materials in patchwork-type techniques to rescue cloth which may otherwise be discarded. Any new materials purchased are 100% biodegradable and the wool is locally sourced. Half of the final outfits (look 2 & 3) are designed to be fully adjustable for a wide range of sizes, so they can still be worn as the body changes throughout the wearers life.