ESTILA KIT MILES
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KIT MILES estila
KIT MILES
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KIT MILES
Opening new worlds with creativity interview by Karolina Barnes, photography provided by Kit Miles
A few years ago I came across Kit Miles wallpaper design and was immediately captivated by his very distinct drawing skills and the storytelling element of his work. I found it fascinating how Kit is able to take familiar objects of our surroundings and through the use of new dimension, scale, context and mood, and give us, the viewer, a newly found appreciation of our world. His ability to create a completely new reality and draw us in that world through depth and contrast, while creating multi-dimensional effects is as much as admirable and as it is inspiring. While Kit's upbringing shaped his curiosity and appreciation for design, his years at the Royal College of Art gave him the opportunity to explore his creativity, honing his unique approach to the design process. Since founding his textile and wallpaper studio in 2013, he has been involved in many exciting commercial and residential projects and collaborations across the world. I was so excited to finally meet Kit recently in person to find out more about his work, the inspiration behind it and future plans.
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KIT MILES
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KIT MILES How did you get into the design world? Did you always know that design is something you want to pursue? I would always run off in the department stores as a child and get myself purposefully lost in the dress fabric department, it was like running through a meadow of printed flowers. At home, my parents were involved in design in their own ways; my mum was an extremely busy florist so the house was full of fresh flowers and my dad delivered very high-end furniture from Minotti, Knoll and a lot of the furniture showrooms in Chelsea Harbour, London. From a young age, I was exposed to design. My grandfather ran a printing press in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire and I used to go with my mother to visit him at work. It was awe-inspiring watching the white, hot machines operate with such speed and ferocity, churning out paper reels, rolling and unrolling, going through cylinders as plain paper and seeing them rush out the other side as pigment rich pages of a yet to be bound magazine. It was very exciting and it totally stayed with me, the smell of the machines and the physicality of it. My grandfather and my family always encouraged me to do what I loved and I hope he would be proud of me today. I think he would be astonished as to how far printing has come on since then and would be very proud of what I have achieved. I left school at 16 for college, which was a pivotal moment for me. I could suddenly dress how I wanted. There, I discovered the printing press all over again but this time it was a 150-year old machine in bright green. The teachers let me play around with it and I started to print more and more within my work.
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Previous page: Corinthian Check | Above: Emperor Damask
KIT MILES
Ultraviolet Garden
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KIT MILES After college, I was accepted into the Royal College of Art aged 20 where I was tutored by Anne Toomey. Also at my time there, Quentin Blake commended my drawings - I felt I was really fine tuning my concept and had to decide if I wanted to do fashion or interiors. I chose interiors but decided that part of my ambition would be to imbue my work with the energy and electricity that I found so inspiring about fashion. Your style and design work are highly distinctive, particularly your approach to three dimensional print and scale. Do you think that those characteristics helped you in building your brand? I think in three dimensions. I am really rigorous in drawing and embrace the discipline of textile design through respect of all the incredible craftspeople that have created before me. I do feel part of this great heritage in a way. As much as my work has a dialogue with the past, it is very much bound for the future. I am inspired by some of the big questions in science and nature which I transfer into my work. As a result, it makes works with a point of view. My ethos as a business is that discovery and opening new worlds are open to possibility and that really allows me the creative freedom. I am glad I made that choice in the early days not to make my aesthetic voice about a look but a concept that allows for multiple outcomes and stances. What have you found most challenging in the early days of your business? The early days were tough having to decide between a tube journey or buying dinner that night and making rent. But those days didn't last for too long. The greatest challenges always lay within yourself - first you must conquer yourself. You have to be prepared to fight but always from a place of love to thrive. All creatives have someone they look up to for inspiration, guidance or mentorship. Who or what inspires you? Marina Abramovic, the performance artist. Her story is one filled with struggle, truth and a deep desire to understand. She is someone I respect; I highly recommend her book "Walk through walls". I also adore Bjork, Madonna, Bette Davis, Eartha Kitt and Maya Angelou. These women inspire me deeply. But I also find the whole world inspiring. It is never about one specific item of book; it's more about training the mind and the eye to look in order to see and to alchemise through dreaming a little. That way everything becomes connected and the work perhaps is a means of interpreting those connections.
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KIT MILES
Kubrick
Where do you see Kit Miles as a brand in the future? Do you have some interior designers and/or other creatives in mind that you would like to work with? I'm working to create one of the best, most artful collections of materials for interior designers who love colour, are willing to take a risk sometimes, and who are driven by excellence. We want to empower our clients to create their best work, using our line of products as a means of creating identity and memory. Our focus is to bring together these entities and in doing so, deliver an increased value point for our customers’ end goal, which is designing truly meaningful and inspiring interiors for the 21st century and beyond.
For more information or enquiries, please email sales@kitmiles.co.uk On the cover: close up of Metamorphosis
kitmiles.co.uk
IG @kitmilesstudio
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