Sophie Wilkinson-Cooper’s graduate collection was based on her own life story, from growing up in Grimsby to becoming an expatriate at the age of 6. Now she is trying to reconnect and relearn her home towns heritage. Sophie wanted to create an eye catching collection, that clashed various different prints that were sublimated onto different textured fabrics using a colour pallet that relects her home town colours, and also represents a sporty and nautical theme.

When Sophie initially started researching about Grimsby Town Football Club, she found out that Youngs, a frozen fish company based in Grimsby, had been their sponsor for 18 consecutive seasons. She reached out to Youngs about her project, and was passed to the brand development director and head of graphic communications, who confirmed that she had permission to use their licensed logo in her work. This then lead her to develop the ‘Youngs X Wilkinson-Cooper’ print on Adobe Illustrator, where she then developed several colour ways around the brands colours. These prints were then tested on vegan oil matte and roller blind fabrics to mimic the types of fabrics used in waterproof outwear

 

 

Developing the scarf inspired from her youth, Sophie worked with freelance knitter, Naive Knitwear, who specialises in machine knitting. The aim was to try and create, as accurately as possible, what her vision was; a thick embossed chevron with a thin striped background. The accuracy of using a machine allows you to create a sharper and more in depth, detailed knit compared to hand knitting.

After trying to ensure her garments sustainability, she used a wool that is a mix of Merino and recycled yarn, which due to the different weights of yarn used, created softness, strength and vivid detail within her knitwear.

After months of digital development, Sophie was able to design a 4 look final collection. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic however, Sophie was only able to create 2 of her final looks for her collection.

Sophie had digitally printed her Youngs X Wilkinson-Cooper print onto roller blind fabric, which is a water resistant fabric used in weatherproofed garments. She then used a recycled bamboo towelling to form the shorts, and and combined them with built in cycling shorts made from Ponte Roma Roped jersey. She then finished them with eyelet details and a drawstring waistband. Finally her knitted shirt and scarf were all added to finish this look.In her second look, Sophie designed other digitally printed fabrics that reflected the sporty, nautical themes she was inspired by. With a striped print and a dogtooth fishing rope print that she had digitally designed on Adobe Illustrator, she had these printed onto a jersey fabric, and a marbled velvet fabric to form an aysemtrical sweater t-shirt. Within this sweater t-shirt, a physical rope detail was carried through eyelts merged between the two fabrics, to combine the ideas of fishing rope knots and football shoe laces. This featured a series of figure of 8 knots, and ended with a shoe lace knot to finish. Sophie constructed a callot short pant, with a turned up trouser cuff, and as she was interested in manipulating fabrics, she reused the same roped jersey fabric, but added heat vinyl transfer to the side seams, which created an embossed effect outlining the roped print of it.

In each of the outfits, Sophie decided to add leg warmers, but both had different knitting styles to suit. In her first look, the legwarmers were a chevron striped print which was machine knitted, meanwhile the second look used a hand knitted cabled and looped construction, made from Skein wool, to honour the knit style used by fishermen in their garments out at sea.

To finish the looks, Sophie added accessories such as a Sau Wester hat and an oversized sports bag.