At RCA I became friendly with a couple of Fashion students. Their studios were high up in the main building overlooking the Royal Albert Hall and the Albert Memorial. It was a different world. They had a much better studio space, floor-to-ceiling windows, machines, real equipment, and new technology - everything I’d assumed we would have, but didn’t. They had better access to the library and best of all - the Greenhouse (now long gone)
The long-gone greenhouse at RCA
More importantly. They worked. Really hard. They knew how to design, plan, make, tailor, dye, knit, weave, construct and style. I couldn’t believe how diverse their skill base was, how connected to their industry they were and how every project was an outside commission, a big prize competition or something sponsored by a name brand. The only self-initiated work they had time to do was their final major project. They went abroad regularly and connected with their industry, it was exciting and impressive - they were highly motivated and they just got on with it. They were the only department that could stay in the studio working overnight - and they did. Anyone who thinks fashion is trivial or not a real industry is a bloody fool.
This was the kind of environment I wanted. The students got on with each other and did joint projects, but when they did compete against each other - their own individual skills and style made it fair and friendly. The staff were committed and there all the time, they had great technicians who helped. What the fuck was I doing in a department where nobody cared?
Because I made a lot of friends there, I started helping out with graphics - just a few bits of type, labels, business cards, the odd bit of help with print etc - and they would help me back. One of my final projects was a set of printed silk scarves as promotional material for a silk merchant in Italy (it was a made-up brief from Brian Tattersfield at Minale Tattersfield, a really weird situation and one of only two outside briefs that came onto my course - it was very political and I think a favour for a friend on the staff. The other competition was for the cardboard display company Anabas, a brief to design a box for vinyl records. I won that one and got £300, 25% was taken off my by the course as ‘tax’. I was given a lot of help by one fashion student (Beverly) to print directly onto silk which was a much more complicated process than I anticipated, Gumming a sheet of calico flat onto a table and then stretching the fine silk over the dry surface, pinning it carefully around the edges to prevent wrinkling and keeping it taught so I could lay the screen directly on top. Now they use a vacuum table (this piece of work was one of the ones stolen from my show).
The silk scarves I designed and printed - these are just proofs - there were 6 all together, the rest were stolen at the RCA show.
I got on with them socially as well - they worked really hard and could go out afterwards and have fun guilt-free. I kept in touch with many of them after college and continued doing bits and pieces of work - usually for free - because they knew I understood what they were doing and I respected how hard they worked.
After college, I was earning enough money from bar work to take a desk share at Panther House studios (Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday - £25pcm). It was a large Victorian complex of small studios for designers, illustrators and artists at the junction of Grays Inn Road and High Holburn. Walking distance from my house. I had very little paid work but I used the time to do things that interested me and mulled over where I was going. I picked up the odd bits and pieces from people I knew but really didn’t pursue work. The important part for me was being with other self-employed creatives and independent designers.
At about this time, I was asked by an old tutor at Camberwell to fill in a bit of teaching time on the Foundation course. I ended up being there for about 5 years, 2 days a week - with a great team of tutors, working on a fantastic course, I’ve always thought that Foundation was the most important year for any student and Camberwell was one of the best in the UK. Because I was on the ‘circuit’ I picked up a few other bits of teaching at places like Epsom and the John Cass. I was still in my 20s and only interested in Foundation, I think you need a lot more professional practice behind you before you teach on a degree course (that’s just my belief, and probably not what happens in real life). I was still renting and not spending much).
At about this time, I started getting bits of work at several prediction and forecasting agencies. They were companies that fed design inspiration to the fashion industry and offered practical support - branding, packaging, brochures, print etc. After a couple of years, I was working as a freelancer pretty much full-time in this sector. Still self-employed and casual - but it was enough. It worked well because I understood the industry and the people, I met some fantastically talented designers, colour specialists, weavers, knitters, tailors, merchandisers - everything that goes into the industry. Because everyone else was freelance as well, and it was a very mobile environment - I had a lot of contacts and opportunities. I liked the smaller projects best, not getting too bogged down and having tight deadlines. I also loved the seasonal factor - once you reached the end of a season, it was over - you moved on to the next thing, no time to mess about. Working a year ahead was great too. In the end, I worked for companies all over the world and most high street retailers, big store groups, well-known names in fashion and lots of really great small factories. All from a desk share and my flat in Aldgate. Back then work was more informal and there was more money about. Pre-computerisation I was seen as an ‘expert’ supplier. I’d regularly get a phone call from someone I knew in the head office at NEXT in Leicester - could I come up for a 10-minute meeting to talk about a swing ticket? I got paid for the day and expenses, then paid a day to design a wash label or something simple. Sounds insane now but normal then.
Later on, I took a bigger one-room studio above the Percy Ingle Bakery in Whitechapel (It’s a solicitor now), sharing with a couple of girls who had weaving looms in the room below and a collective of knitwear designers upstairs - a few doors away from the pub I still occasionally worked at - then later on (when my downstairs neighbour got too much) I moved into a cheap Live/work space in Walthamstow Village on St Mary’s Road (It’s all posh flats now). Design was much more manual and basic then - which suited me - I’ve always been very hands-on and I had no problem making realistic mock-ups of packaging and print. I leased a cheap photocopier which quickly became my best friend and later on bought a 2nd hand LC2 Macintosh with a little screen and some early software, it was so basic you could only work in Mono and had to render the colour view. I taught myself to use it, sitting up until 1 am most nights just trying to figure out how. I loved using Quark Express - it was obviously engineered to emulate the physical process of design, type and print and suited me very well. There was a small litho print studio downstairs, add on a little mono Apple printer and my studio was complete. Occasionally I needed type set properly so I used the Anarchist Typesetters in Whitechapel (they were associated with the Anarchist Bookshop behind the gallery). They really were Anarchists.
The studio in Walthamstow - I was the first floor, two windows (2nd and 3rd from the right, and the roof space above - you can see the shadow of where the staircase up to my door used to be, filled in with new bricks) This was a factory - it’s now posh flats. Half a million quid each. Backs right onto the railway line.
Around this time I had no real ambition to build a career (I probably still don’t). I just enjoyed the work and went with the flow. I didn’t want to work full time and liked the variety. In a lot of ways, I didn’t think anyone would want me - I’ve never been very good at ‘fitting in’ and I get bored easily. I never once considered working at a design agency or trying to get ‘regular’ design work. The people I’d been to college with were already moving into senior positions or ‘making the move out of London’. They had kids and cars and houses. None of that interested me. And frankly, I didn’t think I was that good.
I was about 28. One day a friend I’d worked with at Nigel French (A forecasting agency) asked me to work on a bit of freelance packaging for her current client, French Connection. It was a tiny job for a swimsuit box - I suggested putting it in a vinyl pencil case instead of paper packaging - like the ones you had at school. Quite a lot happened after that.
Great history!