From plastic-free buttons to a dress made from root grown lace, London designer Phoebe English treats every collection as a materials experiment.
Most designers begin with a mood or a silhouette. Phoebe English begins with materials already out there. Since founding her London studio in 2011, she has built collections from offcuts and surplus fabric, letting the material shape the design rather than the other way round.
Natural materials are the foundations of her work – and this extends to the smallest details. Buttons made from corozo nut or milk casein are chosen over plastic, organic cotton thread is used wherever possible.Her pieces are purposefully designed to be easily mended and to biodegrade at the end of their life.
Her most striking project is a dress made with Rootfull, which grows textiles from wheatgrass roots in carved beeswax moulds. Joined with knots rather than stitches, the lace-like dress can be composted. It was first? shown at V&A Dundee’s Garden Futures exhibition in xxxx. It asks a simple question: where do the fibres in our clothes actually come from?
Her work has earned the Marie Claire Sustainability Award, a Leader of Change honour at The Fashion Awards and a Beazley Design of the Year, and sits in the collections of The Met and the V&A.
It’s exactly the mindset we look for in the Only Natural Student Design Competition: start with the material, think about its whole life and let that shape the design.
Discover more at phoebeenglish.com.
