Katie Jones is a knitwear and crochet designer who works as a freelancer. Katie Graduated from London's Central Saint Martins, in which during her 2nd year in her BA Hons Degree she worked with Mark Fast, whom she still works with too this day. This was her first experience working in a design studio. Katie is self taught in crochet which occurred whilst on a placement in New York, and has always been interested in creating knitwear so was very focused from the start of her course on where she aimed to be at the end of it.
Katie likes to work freelance because it gives her many experiences working with different designers. She has not only worked for Mark Fast but John Galliano, and Diane Von Furstenburg also. On these placements she has worked around the world in Paris, New York and Australia. And said these were her best experiences and if any designer had the chance they should grab it while they can because they not only help develop and widen your designs, but give you amazing contacts in the fashion world that really get the ball rolling when starting up in the fashion world. Katie found that Paris is very creatively driven whereas New York is more driven by marketing and sales. You are more likely to get something exclusive in Paris then New York where everything is mass produced.
Katie Says that Central Saint Martin's was very self taught and you didn't receive much hands on time with your lecturers, so when you met up for workshops and tutorials you really bounced ideas off of your fellow course members and visiting lecturers. She says that a lot of the time she makes a half a garment and takes a photo and uses photoshop to flip it as if it is a full garment, this takes a lot less time to produce and can be put into a portfolio and presented to clients as if it's a full product. She produces designs and illustrations by drawing into photos she already has as this can be very inspirational and influence other designs, Katie enjoys creating her final illustrations- But finds it quite hard to draw, so her illustrations tend to be more creative and textile based.
Research is the most important stage of designing, and Katie uses a lot of film and documentaries as her inspiration, if you run out of research you run out of steam for designs. And producing twoile's helps show how a garment will hang and that in design studios around 12 twoile's would be made before they settle on making the final product.
Katie is currently in the process of releasing her own eco brand as in the fashion world there is a lot of waste created and Katie likes the idea of using this waste to create masterpieces. And is working with Estethica to do so. She is just waiting to pitch and launch!
A little word of advice from Katie Jones herself 'Value your skill'
Thanks!
Charlotte x
