This was a labour of love for us, as we are cat obsessed. A small boutique company asked us to design a range of cat-related small bags. The client wanted the most realistic effect, but due to budget constraints, we couldn’t do whole furry faces, but the eyes alone make an equally if not more stunning effect. In discussion with the client, we worked a series of cat’s eyes on various coloured silks. So blue eyes on white silk, and a version on black silk. So, six variations in total. We would finish the bags into makeup bags or even clutch bags.
We sewed the embroidery on the bags on dupioni power woven silk, so we have fewer slubs than hand-woven silk and stitched by hand in fine filament silk, so it is just the eyes, nose, and whiskers. Each bag takes about two days to sew, and each eye has up to 12 colours and is thread painted; as eyes have no direction of growth, the stitches run along the grain of the silk to create the mirrored effect as if the cat is watching you, they are then made up with invisible zips and contrasting lining also in silk. Each zip pull had a tiny fishbone design we sourced for the company.
They were delighted with the pieces and sold the most out on their pre-order launch.
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Photography by Catherine East
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