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Monday 14 March 2011

Agent2 Magazine Interview





IN A WAREHOUSE SOMEWHERE IN HACKNEY, JENNY BUTLER WENT TO CHAT TO THE LATEST STUDENT OF CENTRAL SAINT MARTIN’S TO MAKE HER NAME AS AN UP AND COMING DESIGNER.  FLIK HALL SPOKE TO ME ABOUT HER LOVE OF PRINTS, SHARP SILHOUETTES AND THE OCCASIONAL DOLLS ARM.

From doing her foundation course in Fashion Print at Central Saint Martin’s this young designer interned with house of Holland and Giles. “Originally I wanted to be a fine artist. I enjoyed painting the body, making collages and putting textiles on mannequins. I realised at 17 or 18 that I wanted to pursue a career in fashion design

Flik’s mother was a jewellery collector which gave her an early start at seeing how fashion changes over time. “The shape of the jewellery use to interest me and how it could be made into clothes. I like the idea that my clothes have texture, different tones and interesting shapes.”
The dolls arm necklace from her Spring/ Summer 2011 Mannequin Parade collection has been the talking point of Flik’s work. “I realise how lucky I am to live in London. You can wear whatever you want here and everyone here wants to experiment. In Paris the dolls limbs were seen as being a little odd. That wasn’t the case in London.”

Her idea stemmed from looking at alters in Mexico. “There was a jumble of toys on the Mexican alters and the colours were all very watered down. There were no dramatic tones and this interested me. Hessian was also a big part of their culture so I decided to incorporate this into my collection.”
Her new collection, which is still in its early days, is a lot darker then her previous collection. It still integrates a number of fabrics together to create an almost futuristic look. The shiny and matt contrast, silk and wool, and metallic leathers shows a designer who is very sure of her direction.


“I had been reading a lot of philosophy and I felt very dark. I asked myself ‘do we really have free will, and what would happen if we don’t?’ One of the dresses prints comes from me looking down at houses in London from a bird’s eye view. I wanted to look at who was in control, are there other driving forces, things that we can’t control that are already laid out for us?”
Her latest signing to Blow PR will mean we see a lot more of this young designer. Her next step will be London Fashion Week, but she has been given the luxury from her PR company to develop her line and experiment.

Words Jennifer Butler

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