Thomas Crane : Between Two Frontiers
Another favourite graduate designer that we saw at the Dundee V&A Fashion Now event was Thomas Crane from Herriot Watt University.
His collection was based on Western silhouettes with Scottish textiles which led to some really cool pieces like these tartan chaps!
It was particularly special to my daughter, who is half American but was born and raised in the Highlands. She expressed not always feeling like people fully accept her as Scottish, because of some of the accent and terms she's picked up from her American dad. And now with the shit show that is the US government, there's more tension and shame felt around having anything to do with the USA right now.
So to see both of her cultures represented here was quite touching for her.
We were fortunate to get a moment to chat with Thomas after the show, and he said he thought a lot about how the textile techniques from Scotland would have been carried over by immigrants and gone on to shape the culture there.
It gave us a lot to think about afterwards and has become a huge inspiration to my daughter for her advanced higher art textiles project. She's chosen Thomas Crane as her "inspired by" artist for her project too.
I especially love that fabric on the shoulders, I can't remember what he said it is now, but it's reminiscent of a carpet my granny had and I can almost feel it under my fingers again!
I'm really looking forward to seeing what his next collection looks like!
