louise watteau

a rough guide to: louise watteau

Why not visit? louise’s favourite places

The Alps

The Alps in France Turtle Bay, Kenya Florence, Italy Sydney, Australia St Ives, England

Need to know: name: louise watteau age: twenty one from: goring-by-sea, west sussex studying: fashion design with knitwear at central saint martins favourite colour: brown favourite film: forrest gump / matilda / once favourite designer: leutton postle

Louise’s most recent project sourced inspiration from a class trip to Florence, Italy, to attend the yarn fair Pitti Filati.

Here is an extract from her sketchbook wherein she aimed to combine the culture and vibrant life of Florence with the playfulness of what she calls a ‘holiday’ rather than a class trip.

Day trip to:

an interview with louise watteau

The first time I meet Louise she’s wearing white best of Bananarama dungarees and is explaining to her class how a cultural trip to Italy resulted in a knitted Peroni bottle.

‘It’s just about having fun, really. That’s the whole approach I take – I don’t want to make something too serious because that isn’t me.’ I warmed to her immediately.

‘I was looking through my camera, and obviously, Florence is such a historical city with all it’s artwork, and it was all just blurred pictures of Michelangelo’s whatever, and the rest of them were just us just being drunk,’ she laughs. Maybe less of a laughing matter when she returned home and realised she had to produce samples inspired by the city of culture and (liquid) carbs. ‘Pictures of blood, wine glasses, us lying in the street and stuff – I was so cross with myself because I couldn’t do my project on anything that I’d found.’ Resolved to honesty, she based her samples around a holiday with her friends: blurred renaissance art smudged further by the vibrancy of being young and carefree in the city. Anyway, ‘It was so much more fun.’

With projects spanning everything from hoarders to childhood caravan holidays in subject matter – and now, getting drunk against a backdrop of Michelangelo’s whatever – her work is often a snapshot of time gone by. To try my hand at the knitwear vernacular, the skein of humour needs only a slight prod to reveal an old soul nostalgia.

‘I remember how somebody was stuck on what to base their collection on, and Sarah Gresty [head of fashion] told him, ‘Just make it about you; it’s personal.’ She finds her best work is born of the personal: ‘They always

looks better when I enjoy the research and find humour in it as well. Otherwise it just looks cringy and awful.’

But complacency isn’t an issue: after a mid-project crit – critique or feedback session to the lay people – she and five of her friends got together for another. ‘We just sat around in a booth and said, “You should do this” and it was so helpful, I think we’re going to do it for every project now…. hopefully that’ll work. I think we all help each other, so it’s fine.’

‘I mostly like to make it humorous, funny, not serious. Just light hearted because it’s refreshing. Some people take it too seriously, like the whole thing… and everything gets a bit too serious.’ She gestures around her as though the migrating droves toting coffee cups down the corridor are responsible for bringing the mood down.

What are her aspirations for after the ‘whole thing’s’ done, then? Perhaps a Louise Watteau label? ‘No, definitely not; no way. I just don’t have enough money to start it and I just don’t want that stress, really…. or the risk. I think I’d rather work for a smaller, sustainable brand in London -even if it’s not as creative.’ Quite the compromise for the girl who can out-knit time.

Why not visit:

louise watteau’s fisherman project

*Ben is Louise’s best friend, who also studies knitwear

“Ben and I went to get fishing nets in Billingsgate market at 4am and it was hilarious because they were all so alpha male and we looked so out of place. From that I found a fishing photography book that I got research from and combined the fishermans clothes with the really bright fly fishing flies to make it funny because none of the 'blokey' men would ever be seen dead in pink dungarees”

When Louise Watteau first applied to Central Saint Martins two years ago, she explains how it was the interest she expressed in developing sustainable fashions that really helped her to get in to the prestigious art college. But is that precisely the problem? Is the trendy veneer of excitement surrounding sustainability in fashion only acting as a distraction for the actual problems at hand? Louise thinks so.

Is 'sustainability' just another buzzword adopted by modern lovers of fashion who seek moral gratification through transforming serious issues into commodified trends? Maria Grazia Chiuri sent t-shirts emblazoned with the instruction, We should all be feminists, down the runway at Dior last September; and unsurprisingly her 'feminist statement' (Vogue) made no actual difference whatsoever to gender inequalities around the world. And so, what difference will it make if Vivienne Westwood does the same with her self-righteous pursuit of a Climate Revolution?

At the mention of Westwood, Louise exhibited a noteworthy eye roll to the "fake sustainability" preached by the 75 year old British designer; going on to note how she "uses normal materials and puts a ‘Climate Revolution’ slogan on it, it’s ridiculous. It’s still cotton.

It’s shameless – it is hilarious". Watteau is a firm believer that committing to sustainability isn't buying one of Westwood's tops for £100 in Selfridges or hashtag activism on social media; it's rethinking and challenging the way the fashion industry as a whole operates.

The push for sustainability is at its core a push to improve the extensive supply chains which fuel the fashion and textiles industry and cause it to be the second most polluting industry in the world. It means using materials and methods of production that are less damaging to the environment and waste less of our shortening supply of natural resources.

It is at the start of the supply chain where radical, yet simple enough, changes need to be made. Sustainability should be considered within the process of designing far more than in the marketing of a brand's image, and this is the root of the problem. Far too many brands see the notion of sustainable fashion as an opportunity to hop on an another supposedly trendy bandwagon, rather than an opportunity to remedy deeply imbedded flaws in a failing production process.

One designer who is doing it right according to Louise is Christopher Ræburn. The British designer is renowned for pioneering sustainability in his work: be it menswear, womenswear or in accessories. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art, Ræburn has worked intensely with the upcycled approach to fashion, wherein he reuses and recycles the materials constructing his collections so as to reduce the negative impact upon the environment. Ræburn is undoubtedly committed to his vision of sustainability; his union of luxurious and ethical design ensuring his brand's success will be equally as sustainable.

Despite this focus on the flaws of the manufacturing side of fashion, it would be a sweeping oversight to neglect to critique the behaviour of the consumer in an evaluation of sustainability in fashion. The throwaway nature of consumer culture only perpetuates the pressures placed on the supply chains to satisfy increasingly fast demands of fashion. It will be difficult for suppliers to change their approach entirely if their efforts are not reciprocated by those demanding the goods.

And so, what is Louise's message? While she finds the cult of sustainability crusaders to be entirely ridiculous, she affirms that sustainability itself is not at all ridiculous, but rather a necessity in our current climate. If you are going to be an activist, you need to be active in making changes yourself. Sustain your love of sustainability.

Christopher Raeburn A/W17 Ready to Wear

Don’t miss!

An unsustainable love of sustainability?

What to do in:

It’s commonplace in Northern Ireland for those uninterested in the 12th July Orangemen parades to migrate over the border to Donegal when the time rolls around. Off-white pebble dash bungalows rusted by the sea air, slot machines, condensation heavy caravans and wilting showbands, on disembarking the train into Brighton, I felt a spike of nostalgia for soggy Donegal summers.

And despite its status as a windy holiday haunt, there’s something innately homely about this tourist hotspot just an hour and ten from London Bridge.

Though the franchised stalwarts were open, arriving at eleven o’clock on a weekday morning however, meant less hotspot more tumbleweed, with most of the cafes and shops along the seafront shuttered.

Sitting in the airy studios of 1 Granary Square picking apart at yarn for hours on end can really do something to you. When the omnipresent clatter of heels and wafts of overpriced coffee get too much for Louise Watteau she feels the need to grab her knitting needles and get away to Brighton.

Near to her parents’ house in Goring-by-sea and where she completed her art foundation, Brighton feels very much like home to Louise. We decided to take a trip to the seaside and see for ourselves how easily a haphazard trip to Brighton could feel like going home.

Brighton

Ensuring to be thorough in perpetuating stereotypes, the pier was the first port of call: the attractions lifeless and the only other drizzle sufferers uniformed teenagers bunking off. I was willing to wait for a ride on the Ghost Train.

Freya, supposedly named after the great explorer Dame Freya Stark, said no.

This was followed by the next most conspicuous attraction: The Royal Pavilion.

Upon learning that entry was £4.20 for a student ticket and reasoning that such an amount could be likened to a cappuccino and a half, in the vein of Ewan McGregor, we chose life, and instead crossed the gardens past buskers and lunchers to the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.

The twee pottery classics were a highlight – must haves turned tacky over time. With all its tired seaside tropes and effortful charm, Brighton as a piece of pottery is more the porcelain figurine than it is the Picasso out the front.

Permanent galleries include Ancient Egypt, 20th Century Art and Design, Fashion & Style, and Willett’s Popular Pottery – a bric-a-brac of culture without the arid self-importance of some of the London galleries. The museum hopper and half-hearted stroller alike could get around it in a couple of hours.

Louise cited trawling the vintage shops of the lanes as her favourite thing to do, so after a coffee at Pret a Manger (in our defence, Brighton branches serve coffee in actual mugs, so it wasn’t entirely old hat) we stopped in Dirty Harry on Sydney Street. With all the standard vintage fare – unflattering corduroy and patchwork suede – it’s not the best, nor the cheapest, vintage that Brighton has to offer. Try To Be Worn Again on Kensington Gardens for a better selection of womenswear.

The North Laine is to the bibliophile what the slots are to the punter. A few doors down from To Be Worn Again is Brighton Books, a second-hand bookshop in the midst of closure with everything subsequently half price. There are hundreds of beautiful hardbacks at a steal if willing to forgo fresh air for a few minutes.

Cheaper still, is Oxfam books a few doors down again, a pissy smell and an impressive collection of bookshelf of Brighton Rock could be found for three quid after I it for ten at Waterstones a few days earlier. Patience is a

with much less of essentials. A copy unduly purchased virtue and all that.

And while it’s fine pawing over unaffordable clothes with mitts greasy from unaffordable hand cream, observing the ebb and flow of a place is much more telling than a hesitant shop assistant. So we sat and did just that – observe, caffeine in hand: art students, pensioners, suspicious looking pairs disappearing into the swell of the beach. Not quite Donegal caravan holiday, but equally as soggy and as thrillingly familiar.

presented by:

kate mccusker

freya martin

*with thanks to louise watteau