Matthew Needham - Fashion Open Studios, 21st April 2020

A feature of this year for Fashion Revolution Week 2020 is Fashion Open Studios providing delegates the opportunity to meet Designers virtually and step into the studios and homes of the teams behind their collections.

​Yesterday our team joined many across the world to hear from some of the most innovative Designers in this day and age. Matthew Needham worked with four Designers for his MA collection for Central Saint Martins where he graduated a week before lock-down in the UK.  The Designers were joined by Sarah Mower the international journalist and critic for US Vogue who is also the ambassador for Emerging Talent for the British Fashion Council.

Inspiration for Needham's collection came from a trip he took to Bodo, Norway in 2015 where he was moved by the landscape having growing up in Leicester he had not ‘seen Mountains’ like this before. Coincidentally he met another fellow student at CSM who was from Bodo who had a tattoo 'Oyeblikk' on his knee which means in Norwegian ‘in a blink of an eye’ and so the concept for his collection started to evolve with the main theme for the collection being transformation.

Helen Kirkham a qualified footwear designer is a renowned upcycle Designer who formerly worked for Adidas was asked by Matthew to work with him on this collection at a time where she did not have the capacity, given her own commitments.  Upon discussing the concept and enthused with his passion and process she created nine pairs of shoes which Fibram fiver finger toe shoes and repurposed Manolo Blahnik's from Sarah Mower’s closest.

Jo Miller a qualified Milliner who studied at the Royal College of Art was formerly the resident Milliner at Sarabane Studios set up by Alexander McQueen Foundation. Whilst developing her own practices she worked beside Sophia Webster, Studio XO and James Kelly.  She shared in this talk that she creates primarily millinery and not occasion wear.  For the 'Oyeblikk' collection she was able to stay true to her art form and created non-toxic resin balloon hats.
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Created over a six-month period jeweller and fellow collaborator Alice Potts created with Matthew a earring piece called ‘The Tearing’ made from Matthew’s actual tears.  What was fascinating was the different molecular structure of different emotions shown in his tears over this six-month period as pictured.

Needham’s collection was perfectly complete with his pieces he referred to as luxury leftovers.  His ‘Air Shape’ top was created using dead stock silk from Alexander McQueen and also duvets he sourced from Barnardos.

Matthew Needham, Alice Potts, Jo Miller and Helen Kirkham were able to explore and give light to the art forms they are devoted transforming ideas to creating stories and behind these pieces through the 'Oyeblikk' collection. Today they are some of the world’s most innovative and dynamic Designers and artists. Photo Credit: ID Magazine and Matthew Needham.