Today I went to see the Missoni exhibition at the Estorick collection of Modern Italian Art. I've recently decided to change my specialism to knit, so I was especially interested in seeing the whole design process behind Missoni's amazing garments. There were screens showing rolls of knitted fabric being made in the Missoni factory, and the set up of the exhibition was surrounded by yarn spools, in their trademark eye-catching colours. The first room I went into showed a lot of the inspiration behind the Missoni brand, mainly Futurism, geometrics, and the work of Sonia Delaunay. There were many research sheets that showed the design process that went into the knitted swatches produced. These were mainly combinations of colour, which were then charted next to machine needles to indicate the pattern set up ready to be knitted. I found the use and combinations of colour really inspiring as this is something I have been wanting to explore further this Summer and into my 2nd year of the course. The tones of colour were so varied, including combinations I would never think of putting together, which makes me think I need to be more adventurous with this. There was also a lot of black outlines within the work, which really brought the brights together. The garments were really fascinating, the detail, the colours, and techniques used. I tried to capture the detail in the photographs I took, as they really were so intricate.
