One of the best things about being my involvement with Pulse has been discovering exciting new designers.
Lovely Pigeon is the brain child of designer, maker, printer, illustrator and upcycler Kirsty Thomas. She lists her loves as “doodling, junk-shopping, making lists (and losing them again), mid-century modern, old tea towels, flea markets, sewing, folk, beaches, wine, growing vegetables, text, pop-up shops, wally dogs… and pigeons.” Sounds like my kind of girl!
As part of my new approach with this column documenting the designing and making process, Kirsty has very kindly agreed to talk us through her latest product, from initial inspiration to the final items, which you can see on her stand at Pulse.
She says: “The Pigeometry collection grew from a few scribbles on a scrap of card, inspired by my love of geometry, and the colours and shapes of sails, flags, masts and nets in the fishing village where I live and work.”
“While developing a colour palette for the 2012 Pigeon Collection (sky blue, coral and pink taken from faded fishing buoys, flat greys, deep navy and a splash of faded yellow), I also worked on initial sample ideas both on paper and the computer.”
“I amassed a large number of geometric designs and colour combinations that were applied to my first batch of jewellery samples… with mixed success!”
“Lots of these early samples were discarded or set aside for later collections and a final range of pieces was gradually eeked out.”
“My design to manufacture process is a fairly complicated one. I use a special shrink plastic to create my designs, which allows me to apply original illustrations and print to jewellery pieces. This material shrinks to seven times its original size and thickness but the original colours also become seven times darker… so colour and size matching has become a fine art in the Pigeon studio.”
“Layers of lacquer are then built up on the pieces before jewellery findings are attached and the pieces are packaged.”
“Creating Pigeometry has been fantastic process. It’s the first Lovely Pigeon collection that has followed a more formal design process and I absolutely love the end results (and lots of the mistakes along the way). I have created pieces that I really want to wear and that fit in the shops I want to work with. Pigeometry is now available in Tate Modern and Skandium, and has been endorsed by the ever-stylish Lauren Laverne… and that is the best seal of approval I could have hoped for.”
Lovely Pigeon will be on stand LP30 at Pulse 2012 at London’s Earl’s Court from Sunday 10th – Tuesday 12th June 2012. Pulse is a design trade show focusing on five key areas: home, gifts, fashion accessories, wellbeing and Launchpad. I’ll have a stand in the Launchpad section selling my book, so make sure you come and find me too if you’re going to be there.
Further reading for the especially geeky:
- creative spaces :: chase and wonder
- interview :: zeena shah
- here’s one I made earlier :: input
- here’s one I made earlier :: inspiration walk
Very interesting post! I love to see creative processes and can so much relate to the shrinking process. Ceramics are my passion (only a hobby so far) and any kind of clay shrinks during the burning process, too. You have to calculate a lot and just get confident by mastering the basics of the process. But this makes is somehow more “artisan” and that’s why I appreciate even more those kind of works.
Thanks for sharing their story and warmest regards from BYW. Gudy xx