Sverrir’s Art and Design Gallery:

Making clothes in 1990-1991:

Hand painted silk clothes

After just sketching designs from 1986-1989, Sverrir wanted to try making clothes. However, he didn’t know much (or anything) about pattern making and tailoring, and to hire a tailor to create patterns and to create dresses, plus the cost of fabrics, would be very expensive for him. It is expensive enough for large fashion houses, let alone for Sverrir who didn’t have a business in the field.

He had gotten interested in painting patterns directly onto fabric. By that, it could be possible to create unique designs, that were works of art in themselves.

He decided to start by creating jackets of simple cuts, from hand painted silk. Those would be rather square and not with elaborate tailoring, and with shapes inspired by the 1920’s. The simpleness of the cut would make it more manageable to have them actually made. He bought a package of simple jacket pattern designs, and he would be able to draw these onto fabric, and then paint inside the area on the fabric.

He then started sketching designs for patterns, and trying out blending different colour hues and combinations. He would be using the Toba colour system, where the colours were like aquarell colours, and then when the colours were dry in the fabric, they were fixed into the fabric by applying a fixing lotion (the colours were not fixed using steam and heat, which is another method.)

For the most part, the colours acted like watercolor painting, and not like oil/acrylic painting, meaning that they were transparent. First he painted the fabric in a base colour, and the other colours were then added to and blended into the base colour. Using this method, he could not put a red base colour and then have a shiny yellow or blue form. The yellow would be barely visible and the blue would turn into violet. The exception to this was in jacket #1, where he used gelatine blocker and then painted the black colour, then he fixated the fabric, and stretched it up again on the frame, and painted the bright colours into the white patches. This was double work, and he wasn’t quite satisfied with the edges, so he did the rest of the garments like watercolour paintings.

When designs were ready that he was happy about, he painted them onto fabric, and then hired a professional dressmaker to put the finished garment together. 

He held two fashion shows, and also a show in an art gallery that was owned by his grandparents who ran a shop and import business in Reykjavik, selling supplies for artists and craftspeople. The sales were modest so the whole project wasn’t profitable.

However, artistically speaking, he was and is very satisfied with this project, although the cut and shapes of the jacket were perhaps a little flat. After all, these were in fact walking paintings.

The position of hand painted fabrics in fashion markets

Sverrir thinks that hand painting on fabrics is a very interesting option for creators of premium luxury clothes. Hand painting means that a unique work of art is being created, as there will be no other that looks exactly the same (although there may be more than one made using a basic design, but they will not be exactly the same).

Hand painting on fabrics, and then creating the garment from that piece of fabric, would potentially be less expensive than the super extravagant haute couture, which not many are actually buying. But it would be very exclusive never the less.

Not many seem to be using the hand painting option for clothes. At least, Sverrir hasn’t seen many instances of that. Hand painting has, however, been more visible on handbags, for instance the Bloomsbury line from Burberry’s, and personalised bags from Dolce & Gabbana (prices unknown).

Below, you will see the jackets he made, in the correct chronological order. Under that are various sketches, studies and colour experiments.

Jacket #1