Shapes of Light Mosebetsi wa Mantlha: Sekafo sa Mokgabiso by Xiaoxi Zhang

Shapes of Light Mosebetsi wa Mantlha: Sekafo sa Mokgabiso by Xiaoxi Zhang is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2022 Moputso oa Tšepe oa A' Design Award in Moralo wa Dikgabiso tsa Feshene le Maeto Competition Category.

TšepeSekgabiso· 2022

Shapes of Light Mosebetsi wa Mantlha: Sekafo sa Mokgabiso

by Xiaoxi Zhang

Client: Johnstons of Elgin

Moputso oa Tšepe oa A' Design Award Winner in Sekgabiso Category

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Colors

The Design

About Shapes of Light Mosebetsi wa Mantlha: Sekafo sa Mokgabiso

Mongolo wa Buka: Shapes of Light ke letoto la disekafo tse lohilweng tsa cashmere. Letoto lena le kenyeletsa meralo e meraro e susumetswang ke diponahalo tsa tlholeho le tsa metse: ho chaba ha letsatsi lewatleng, mabone a meaho toropong bosiu, le lesedi le bonolo la khwedi mantsiboya. Mehopolo ya ditshwantsho e fetotswe ya ba dipatane tse lohilweng tse nang le sebopeho sa geometri le tse bonolo, hore di lumellane le ditlhoko tsa ho loha. Sekafo se seng le se seng se tshetswe mmala mme sa lohwa feleng ea Scotland, mme bokaholimo ba sona bo phahamisitswe ka thepa ya kgale ya letsoho ya teasel bakeng sa ho fumana boemo bo bonolo. Sepheo ke ho fetola ntho ya kamehla eo motho a e apereng hore e be setshwantsho sa bonono seo motho a ka se apareng.

The Recognition

About the Moputso oa Tšepe oa A' Design Award

Shapes of Light Mosebetsi wa Mantlha: Sekafo sa Mokgabiso ke mohapi oa Moputso oa Tšepe oa A' Design Award, kananelo e hlomphehang e fuoang meralo e metle e finyellang litlhoko tsa porofeshenale le tsa indasteri tse lebelletsoeng ho lintho tse hlahisitsoeng tse entsoeng hantle. Bahapi ba Tšepe ba bontša bokhoni bo boholo, bokhethehi bo phahameng, kutloisiso ea litsebi le bokhoni ba boqapi ba baqapi ba bona. Shapes of Light Mosebetsi wa Mantlha: Sekafo sa Mokgabiso e lebelletsoe ho ba ntho e hlahisitsoeng e hlomphuoang haholo, e ratoang le e ratehang, e sebetsang le e nang le mehopolo e mecha. Moralo ona o hapileng Moputso oa Tšepe oa A' Design Award o kenyelletsa mekhoa e metle ka ho fetesisa ea indasteri mme o na le litšobotsi tsa theknoloji tse nang le bokhoni tse amanang le tsebo le talenta. Ka lebaka la botlalo ba eona, Shapes of Light Mosebetsi wa Mantlha: Sekafo sa Mokgabiso e tšoanelehela tlhompho mme e entsoe ho fana ka ntlafatso ea bophelo e thusang ho etsa hore lefatše le be sebaka se molemo.

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: "Shapes of Light" is Nancy Zhang's special collaboration design series with the Scottish cashmere expert brand Johnstons of Elgins.

For the first time, Nancy expressed her illustration arts with textile technology. The theme of this collaboration "The shape of light" is an extension of her personal illustration project "Light seeker". She made 3 designs to express diverse forms of light: The sunrise on the sea, building lights in the city at night and the soft moonlight in the evening. Light shapes how the environment looks to us, yet the environment we constructed reshapes light in turn at the same time. Does light shape our appearance, or do we construct what light looks like?

It is not only a fashion design collaboration, but also an artistic endeavour.
Dimensions & Packaging: Sunrise and Moonlight: Length 190mm x Width 35mm
Building light: Length 180mm x Width 25cm
Tags: Light, textile, geometric, cashmere, woven, gradient, artistic, scarf, abstract
Production Technology: Woven cashmere scarf series. The whole transforming process was like purification of the visual expressions. From dyeing to blending, carding to spinning, warping to weaving, knitting to teaselling and cutting to folding-it all happens in Johnstons of Elgins.

2 Ombres(Sunrise and Moonlight)：
Manufactured in Johsntons of Elgin, the craft design department and dye house worked together to create a unique blend of colours for the Ombre Oversized Classic Scarves. With the advanced jacquard machine, we can weave over 10 colours in one scarf and each colour is dyed in Elgin mill. From fiber to final products, on average of 33 craftspeople contribute to the making of each of our cashmere scarves. The signature ripple finish is achieved by using traditional hand-worked teasels to gently raise the surface or 'nap' of the completed accessory, achieving a beautifully soft handle.

Building light：
Manufactured in Johsntons of Elgin, the craft design department and dye house worked together to create a unique blend of colours for the Ombre Oversized Classic Scarves. On average of 33 craftspeople contribute to the making of each of our cashmere scarves. The mill uses use dobby loom to weave this particular cashmere scarf, and each colour is dyed in Elgin mill. The signature ripple finish is achieved by using traditional hand-worked teasels to gently raise the surface or 'nap' of the completed accessory, achieving a beautifully soft handle.
Design Challenge: As an illustrator and visual artist, the biggest challenge of this textile design collaboration was transforming the illustrations into woven textile patterns without losing the original conceptual expressions.

Considering the limitations of woven technology, we had to minimize the genomic shapes for the designs as much as possible. However, it turned out to be quite an enjoyable and meaningful challenge for us both. The whole transforming process was like purification of my visual expressions, which is the charm of the textile design.
Research: In my opinion, this design series is not just a commercial collaboration but my attempt to seek a new form of project creation, transforming my personal project into a tangible painting. As the oldest form of humanistic art, textiles have always been very mature in the transformation of technology and contents. Product design is a way for us to touch and use literary and artistic creations in modern society. I call this collaboration series "The Shape of Light” as an extension of the theme of my personal painting project "Light Seekers". And all my research from my personal experiences in nature went into this: during traveling the seaside in the Izu Peninsula, a building lights view in Shanghai and the clear summer moonlight in Berlin. These physic phenomenon were turned into graphical ideas in my mind while I was looking at them. In other words, I would have painted them anyway with or without this design collaboration. It was a pleasure to work with the Johnstons of Elgin team, JOE is a cashmere textile expert in the industry. During the cooperation, I was able to entrust the technical realisation and manufacturing part to professionals. That was the ideal teamwork experience.
Inspiration: Design 1 Sunrise-The inspiration of this one comes from the natural phenomenon- the sunrise on the sea, visualised the graphics with stripes and gradient colours.

Design 2 Building Light-The inspiration comes from the city night view-warm building lights from people's perspective outside, design with plaid graphic.

Design 3 Moonlight- The inspiration was also from he natural phenomenon-soft moonlight in summer evening without clouds,
design with gradient colours.
Project Duration: This project designs started in February 2021 in Berlin, Germany and the products finished in September 2021 in Elgin, Scotland. Currently the goods are available in Shanghai, China.
Operation Flow: Scarves are one of the most common accessories to keep us warm during the winter type. Yet these kinds of daily, simple accessories could be "tangible", "wearable" art pieces as well. Based on "Movable Gallery on body" this key idea, the abstract drawings about different shapes of light were created, however, afterwards the graphics were slightly modified regarding to the woven technology requirements.Actually the final result turned out more minimal than before and it also gave people more space for imagining.Special thanks to the reliable collaboration team, it took more than 30 manufacturing steps and 33 craftspeople's involved in total to achieve the final results and everything went smoothly.
Patents: Johnstons of Elgin (2021) Jenny Urquhart
Team Members: Concept Artist/Creative Director:Xiaoxi Zhang
Craft Designer: Laura Garner
Craft Designer: Aisling Watt
Image Credits: Design&Illustration by Xiaoxi (Nancy) Zhang
Photography by Teasels(Shanghai) Trading Company Limited