Katie Walker Textiles: May 2012

Keeler Gordon Placement

Katie Walker

BA Textile design Year 2

I am delighted to have chosen to take a placement at Keeler Gorden, because I want to see and hear how a textile design company thrives in a highly competitive industry and how it could relate to my own practice as a print designer. I want to explore and recognize what considerations I will need to be aware of after I graduate in June 2013.

The placement was originally suggested to me by my tutor, Jill Rodgers, because of the type of work produced in the Keeler Gordon studio. From Jill’s suggestion I researched details of the company online and found out how to contact them. Once contact was made with the company I was invited to email my creative C V for the Keeler Gorden team to look at. Following this I was offered two weeks work experience with them during May 2012.

I also had an opportunity to meet with two of the company’s team members when I was exhibiting in Paris this year at the Premier Vision Textiles Fair, one of which was a international seller and the other a senior designer named Alison. I found it very interesting looking at their designs and how exhibits were displayed to best advantage. I was also professionally briefed on how the company marketed it’s designs and how the company is organized and managed.

I learnt Keeler Gorden is a fast fashion textile design company that creates original textiles and design concepts for the fashion industry. (Gordon, 2012)

They specialise in designing women’s wear reworked Vintage prints and embroidery concepts that are sold to fashion designers to become one-off garments or mass produced items.

Keeler Gorden uses techniques in screen printing and digital design print created through Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. This technology and computer programming are the back-story to the consistent creative achievements of the Keeler Gorden Company.

The context and role of my placement was to assist the design team in the production of it’s work. Before I started at Keeler Gordon I exchanged emails with Sarah Kennedy, one of their designers and organizer of placements. Sarah explained the tasks that would be expected of me. Starting with assistance in areas such as dyeing, preparing print pastes, stripping, coating and exposing screens; most of which I had some knowledge of.

Sarah explained that in some cases the designer may ask a student to do a small amount of printing, but this was rare. (Kennedy, 2011)

Also I was told to be prepared to help in the construction of garment samples and their embellishment. These tasks would become major aspects of my placement. I was encouraged to be confident in machine stitching before my placement and to be enthusiastic to learn about the workings of a textile design studio to fully appreciate my time at Keeler Gordon.

The company is set in an Industrial Estate in Hackney, East London. This is a prime location for designers, placements and visiting clients and interests. (Kennedy, 2011)

Lucy Keeler, after she graduated from Middlesex University with a BA in textile design, created the company some 15 years ago. Since then she has worked overseas in New York at Tom Cody Textile Design. After reviewing the websites of Keeler Gordon and Tom Cody I can see similarities between their designs and presentation in which I feel Lucy has major influences on her design team. (Gordon, 2012) (Cody, 2012)

From her university degree course and on-the-job training she gained vital knowledge and experience in the textile industry to confidently set up her own business, including the way fast-fashion works. I feel sure Lucy will constantly strive for quick, interesting designs and processes which “hit the market running”.

Since starting the business of Keeler Gorden Lucy now employs a growing team including a project manager, sellers and senior and junior designers. Designers usually specialize in digital or hand printed textiles, each vary with a different end process. Most designers work in-house and are all encouraged to research in their own time looking at displays in shops and galleries and reading relevant literature.

I have learnt from my time at Keeler Gordon how processes work. On the final week of my placement this is how I saw one of the ways the studio operates: -

A typical week at Keeler Gorden starts at 9.30 on Monday morning with a team clean up including the computer studio and print and dye room as this space can be left untidy, if necessary, after a busy Friday session, which I will explain in more detail later.

Each designer is given a brief created by Lucy Keeler and Lee, the managing director. The briefs are strict and have already received specific research to ensure a successful collection from various shows and websites such as style.com. The Designers work from feed-back from their previous designs and a weekly critique from Lucy. They respond to the new briefs in a fresh creative way to ensure another marketable collection.

Within the brief there are colour ways with up to 25 colours. These are usually presented on recycled fabric, alongside design ideas and a concept to work from. I found this an exciting task but sometimes particularly hard to match the colour pallets.

One of the hardest colours to match was a grey shade. I tried a range of dye powders but it seemed almost impossible to create this final colour. Finally after starting with fresh dyeing powders I found the light-grey

colour required. After I identified the colours I stored them in containers ready for the next day’s dyeing.

For a screen printer it can be a long process to dye

fabric to the specific colour way but it is very important to maintain the match of colours to satisfy Lucy’s strict briefs. For Alison’s collection these processes are used so fabric can be dyed and printed the relevant colours.

To finish the day I was taught how to expose and strip screens ready for screen-printing sessions later in the week. I found this task very interesting as at University we do not have access to this part of the screen-printing process. After completing the coating of six screens and found the technique really satisfying, I also very much enjoyed removing imagery as I could only imagine what would be exposed and printed next. I feel I am becoming increasingly confident already in the technical side of the textile industry and that this placement has helped me with this.

The next day started with sorting out designs that Alison had created whilst I was matching her colours. At this point Alison had created 12 coder trace designs digitally on Photoshop with a graphics drawing tablet. The designers at Keeler Gordon will often work in this way as it is a fast and most effective way to work up to Lucy’s high expectations.

Another task given was to join Alison’s designs with invisible tape ready to be exposed. At first I struggled joining her designs and found them to be quite tricky but as I worked my way through a number of designs I became quicker.

Alison’s collection had fantastic geometric shapes, stripes and some even more detailed patterns. I found her creations really interesting. The drawings were simple but effective and I could tell that the end product would be a great design.

Lucy Gordon previously explained in her talk at Norwich University College that she believes the artwork in her company’s designs and prints should be expressive and have a high quality of drawing. (Norwich, 2012). During my placement I began to see more evidence of this from the designers as the week quickly grew in length. Not only from Alison, but from all members of the design team. All having really strong skills.

Alison gave me combinations from the colour palate including colours such as bright orange, light blue and dark blue. I created a collection of 12 samples ready to be printed the next day.

I felt pleased with the quality and combinations that I had created. Seeing them hanging together also gave me a sense of achievement and showed me that even a collection just with colour can be really effective and attractive.

Already on my placement I felt I had learnt and created a lot. From emails previously exchanged with Sarah I had been unsure how much hands-on work I would be doing but after a few days into the work I found it was very practical and rewarding.

On the Wednesday morning we set up the print table covering it with thick paper and laying out the pre-dyed fabric, on which we discharge printed with the screens I exposed earlier in the week. This process was repeated for the 12 pieces of fabrics and was then steamed to show the print.

The next day was spent adding extra details to the fabrics

using foiling. Alison wanted to make some of the finer parts of her prints stand out and give them another layer of interest. This was a very successful choice. I thought as it made the fabrics look professional and very saleable to high street shops such as Next and New Look.

Whilst printing the foiling paste on the fabric I spoke with the newest designer in the team, Hidey. She had been working for Keeler Gordon for a year and a half. She explained how great it was to work in a design studio and how she had learnt so much in the short time she had been there. “Lee has taught me most of what I know and has lead me in the right direction since I started. I felt, as a graduate, that I needed guidance and help and that’s what he gave me”. (Smith, 2012)

Friday was the final day of my placement and also the day all of the week’s work was sent off to America for the sellers to show clients. In order to do this there is a large amount of prep work, starting with hemming all the edges of the fabrics. To do this each designer set-up their sewing machine to a large zigzag stitch and then guided the needle around the edge of the fabric. This created a finished look for the fabric and stopped the edges from fraying. After this a draw string was stitched 40cm from the top of the fabric and pulled into shape. This gave the fabric a garment shape and made the end product look attractive and more saleable.

When these tasks were completed the samples were attached to headers with the company’s name on it and were ready to be shipped off via a courier service.

For a digital designer the week is slightly different; designers in this field create their collection on a computer and then send it via email to a company in Brighton where they produce the fabric on a digital printer for £15.00 a sample around A1 size. The fabrics are then ready to be returned to Keeler Gorden where similar prep work be will completed and also to be sent away to New York.

Whilst working on placement I was lucky enough to use the studio’s equipment, much like the print room at University the studio has a number of necessary items but on a smaller scale. This included a heat press, pressure washer, steamer, spinner, tumble dryer, print table, irons, computer per designer and a large paper printer mainly used for printing coder-traces.

Keeler Gordon publicize themselves by visiting clients in the UK and overseas. They also use Skype calls to present their collections to clients if it is harder to visit them such as new interests in Australia and New Zealand.

Keeler Gordon also has a website with a small selection of designs and contact information but I think they rely more on having contacts in the industry.

With all of these links and factors such as a fantastic design team, Keeler Gordon is successful year round. I also believe this is because of the rate Lucy Gordon pushes her team. Sometimes Lucy may be seen as a hard taskmaster, but it is proven that what she does works. This provides a steady income for Lucy Gordon and her team. Making the company a strong contestant in the harsh textiles business.

In conclusion I find the placement to have been a fantastic experience that has helped me realize how this would be an amazing environment to work in. At Keeler Gordon especially it seems that encouragement by other designers in the company is very important. I believe Keeler Gordon would be a great place to start a career, much like the newest designer Hidey has been able to do.

I am most grateful to the Keeler Gordon company for giving me the opportunity to gain first-hand work experience. From my time on placement I have learnt a range of new skills to support my knowledge of the textiles industry.

Working with the team at Keeler Gordon has influenced my practice by encouraging me to be less precious whilst creating samples and to experiment with dyeing my fabrics in different methods. As my placement was very close to my hand in date I have not been able to apply the skills to my practice but I have a range of new ideas I am very enthusiastic to experiment with next term.

From reviewing what I experienced on placement there isn’t much I feel could have improved my experience at Keeler Gordon. As Sarah Kennedy explained, “Don’t worry. After work experience training you will be able to do those things you first expected not to be able to do”. (Kennedy 2012) Over all I had a fantastic time on placement and would consider returning to Keeler Gordon for a 3 month placement if the opportunity arose.