I’m a designer of interior fabrics and have started to become associated with producing textured material using a technique known as tufting.  So my challenge for the shiftWorks project is to translate what I do into something wearable.   My initial idea is to simply apply my tufted fabric to the shift dress shape so I’ve been sketching to see what that might be like.

I’ve also been using existing fabric swatches to play around using a cut-out shift dress shape.

I’m quite keen to use an element of print in this design as well so the final dress may not be completely tufted.  I’m also toying with the idea of just tufting the back of the dress and allow the tufts to travel forward to the front…. a little bit like a hedgehog.

The next stage for me will be to scale up some of these ideas and drape some of my existing fabric over a mannequin to see what the cosy, tufted threads look like on human shape.

Anna Gravelle