It has always been important for our brand to support local talent. For SS20 we have partnered with homegrown Edinburgh artist Katy Eccles to provide hand embroidery on our Calgary tees. We had a chat with her about a collaboration with KESTIN and her work.
- How did you get introduced to Kestin and the brand?:
"I knew of Kestin through working in the world of retail and was instantly drawn to the beautiful style and ethos of his brand. I was then introduced to Kestin through a friend of a friend (that is Edinburgh for you!) who knew they were looking for some hand embroidery on their spring summer range and put me in touch. I've hand stitched tent embroidery on all the Calgary tees this season."
(image of Katy / image of Calgary sweatshirt tee in Japanese French terry fabric in Heathered Off-White)
- How is the embroidery with Kestin different to your other work?:
"My other work is quite different to the embroidery on the Calgary tees for Kestin. I mainly work on commission, creating bespoke pieces to order so stitching 108 repeat motifs was a unique experience for me. I use a technique called thread painting to capture realistic interpretations of my subjects, which range from pets to sealife, birds and skulls. All my stitching is free-hand and I don't follow a pattern or template to create my commissions rather stitch as you would paint to create a likeness. I prefer to stitch onto Dupion silk, which comes in wonderful bright, bold colours and has a lovely surface texture, but I also use velvet, linen and cotton as background material.
More recently I have started to embellish second hand clothing with hand embroidered elements, swallows, crabs, evil eyes ect. for customer orders and I'm hoping to create a small Hoop&Bone collection of bespoke, up-cycled clothing using thrifted clothes."
- What do you do?:
"I am a self taught embroiderer who first picked up a hoop just over 5 years ago. I have always been interested in textiles and sewing and was forever cutting up my clothing to create weird and wonderful creations at school. I studied Art History at Cambridge, moved to London to work as Secondary School teacher and then relocated to Perth, Australia, where I worked as a Public Art consultant before returning to Edinburgh in 2015; where I worked as Brand Executive for Pad Lifestyle.
Since getting into embroidery I have been stitching before work, in the evenings and at weekends over the past five years to build up a solid customer base and creative identity. Juggling commissions alongside my work at Pad became too much and so I decided to take the leap into full time Hoop&Bone at the end of 2019."
(image of embroidery process / image of Katy's set-up while embroidering)
Check out Katy's work at Hoop&Bone