Creative Process ~ Borealis Wool Mock Neck Top

After our visit to Svalbard's arctic climate, visual artist Coline L'Achiver, collaborating as Studio Cosmogram, returned to London desiring to dive into screenprint as a means of interpreting the winter gradients we had witnessed up north.

While mushing in a valley near the settlement of Longyearbyen, we were both captivated by a peaceful gradient of grey and blue, snow to sky. At the arctic dusk of 2:30 pm, the sky became heavier and darker in the sky as the short period of daylight completed its cycle. It was an incredible contrast with the remaining light bouncing off the reflective snow on the landscape.

 

The tundra landscape that inspired the screenprint featured on Borealis.

 

Spending time with Coline in at her screenprint studio in East London, I witnessed how experimenting with this art form is not for the faint-hearted. It's a highly technical, manual, and physical process requiring much effort to test even a single print. After weeks of experimenting with softness - in opposition to screenprint's more usual sharp graphics and bright colours - Coline had discovered a technique to communicate our dreamy winter ombre. 

 

Studio Cosmogram's original mountain landscape screenprint.

 

In the print, muted greys and blues fill the sky, offset by a subtle white mountain. We intended for the gradient to fall like an ombre canvas on the body, complete with snow-dusted shoulders. Creating a new wearable canvas, I developed an updated wintertime mock neck in 100% wool, cut straight to the body with subtly-widened sleeves. The front bears the peaceful ombre sky, with the back cut by the angular lines of the mountain. It's a sophisticated play of tones and pigment - while looking at the top, the eye struggles to determine which colour it truly is.

Borealis' wool is digitally custom-printed by a supplier working out of the heritage printing town of Macclesfield, UK, having been established there for over 50 years.

Each top is manufactured at a North London-based small-batch production studio. The studio specializes in high-end production, working with many emerging and established designers and brands in the city. Each top is made in-studio by their talented seamstresses and cutters. It takes three hours to cut and sew just one of our pieces.

You can purchase the Borealis Wool Mock Neck Top here.