Work in Progress: Katarina Dubbick

The students from the School of Design at the Royal College of Art in London recently showcased some of their current developments during the Work in Progress show, which took place at the Kensington Campus. The College has two separate knit courses: knitted textiles, a specialism of the Textiles MA, and knitwear, part of the Fashion MA.

Traditionally, the knitted textiles students would develop fabrics for either fashion or interiors, whilst the knitwear students would focus on shapes and silhouettes rather than stitch structures.

Some of the students at the Royal College don’t come from a traditional knit background, and because of this their vision of what knitwear should be about is very fresh, innovative, fearless and not constrained by some of those boundaries that most very experienced people in this field have.

Fashion knitwear student Katarina Dubbick makes bespoke garments for the people she works with, portraying their unique body shape with moulded body fragments integrated into knitwear. Katarina’s work explores a very unique relationship between the body and cloth, and how the latter adapts around the body creating fluid sculptural shapes. The tension between the smooth, leather body fragments and the drapey fabrics that envelop them creates a very intimate sensory experience for the viewer and the wearer alike.

Katarina uses unusual yarn combinations, like metallic viscose and elastic, knitted in simple structures such as ribs or single bed fabrics. Some of her textiles have a very strong sportswear/performance aspect with a soft, compact handle. This allows for original developments with volumes and silhouettes.

Read the full show report by Carlo Volpi here