Hooray, hooray! It is finally May! I want to jump up, and rhyme all day! Spring is here at last, and so is the launch of our Spring/Summer 2017 collection: Eternal Sunshine! I have been waiting many months to send these limited edition pieces out into the world. Now that these beauties are finally available for order, I want share a closer look into the intention and story behind this collection. Like a mama hen, I love each of my collections for the unique stories they tell. This one, however, is especially near and dear to my heart.
About a month before I needed to begin the spring/summer collection, I lost my cousin rather suddenly. We did not really know each other as adults, which is something I regret. But even so, we are family and share a lot of history. After he was gone, I found myself thinking about him a lot. However, the memories I kept honing in on were these little moments, which were so seemingly so insignificant at the time they occurred. One, for example, was a memory of my uncle talking to him outside on the front steps during a birthday party. Another was a quick flash of a smile when I ran into him at a restaurant. I should note that he was my older cousin. So by default, that made a lot of what he did cool. But even so, it amazed me how these rather commonplace memories of him were the ones I had managed to hold on to over the years. And since losing him a year ago now, they have become these little rays of sunshine, which I look back on very fondly. This was the starting point of the SS17 collection's story.
It is a fact of life that as we age and experience more of a sometimes harsh world, we leave many memories and ideals of our young selves behind. Rather than focus on that loss, however, I wanted to pay homage to the moments we take with us. My goal with this collection was to conjure up those little flashes of childhood memory, like the ones I was experiencing in regards to my cousin: subtle and seemingly insignificant, but obviously impactful enough to have remained with me throughout the years. I wanted to recreate these moments in the fabric and garments with a light, ethereal mood. With this as my intention, the design process became a meditation on my own story. I spent a lot of time reflecting and finding more of these little moments of sunshine in my history. The texture of my grandma's old table cloth would eventually inform the lace in this collection. The tones of fading paper would inspired the color palette. The front yard from my childhood filled with dandelions that have turned into those magical puffballs (the ones that grant wishes) would translate into the Veil Shawl. And so on. All of these cozy, subtle moments, which do bring some degree of sadness in their inherent nostalgia, will also forever be a source of sunshine in my story. And that is the true nature of this collection: Eternal Sunshine.
RESPONSIVE TEXTILES is all about connection between the maker (me), the garments and the individuals who wear those pieces. I hope that you feel the love in these clothes, which has inspired their creation.
x Kristine of RESPONSIVE TEXTILES