From the studio No.43

NEXT UP - DATE FOR YOUR DIARY

Crafting Fashion Futures with Fashion Declares!

18th September, Conway Hall King’s X.

It's a symposium on regenerative fashion futures.

I'll be there.

I’ll be showcasing a collaboration with Safia Minney MBE - her artisan made, organic cotton fabric, my design and natural dyed, painted dress. She sent me 4m metres of the fabric and the dress will go in the entrance to Conway Hall.

It's beautiful fabric, so fluid and at the same time, sculptural.

Behind the scenes I've been busy draping, pattern cutting and natural dyeing the dress. One of the details I'm using is the selvedge. I do love a bit of selvedge! Next I'll be sewing on some little red corozo nut buttons and painting on some of my signature lines to finish off.

Draping the fabric and sewing together before dyeing with plant extracts.

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Why are we curating 'Crafting Fashion Futures' symposium?

"Crafting of textiles and clothing is key to slowing down extraction, promoting decent livelihoods, redistributing wealth and building new narratives. Business is beginning to wake up to the opportunities of post-growth thinking and practice - so we’re looking forward to a radical symposium at Crafting Fashion Futures on the first day of LFW" - Safia Minney, MBE

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The event celebrates the 1st day of London Fashion Week & the 1st ever London Textile Month at this fabulous event, at the iconic Conway Hall.
Kicking off the week, this landmark one-day gathering brings together over 20 pioneering voices in regenerative fashion, craft, and ethical textiles for a day of fireside chats, panels, brand pop-ups, and short films.

Organised by Safia Minney (founder of Fashion Declares, People Tree, and Indilisi) and co-curated with Polly Leonard, founder of Selvedge Magazine, the event features leading designers, makers, and thinkers shaping a just and sustainable future for fashion.

In-Person Tickets include a delicious plant-based lunch, and Online Tickets will receive a full recording of the event.

You can join in-person or online and there is an evening event too, with a panel discussion and music.

Fashion Declares! say,
’We’ll be hearing from 20 inspiring international craft thought leaders and pioneers covering the intersection between craft, sustainability, culture and social justice.

From organic textiles, handweaving, natural dying and hand embroidery to design, business and fair livelihoods, we believe that craft can be a key part of building a more positive future for people and planet. Each one of you is holding parts of a potential new narrative in which craft and making can help to create the shift towards a well-being economy and a more just society. We want to invite you to be part of this watershed event!

Crafted Fashion Futures is curated by Safia Minney, MBE, a half-Mauritian, half-Swiss Brit known for founding the slow fashion brand People Tree. Safia has dedicated her life to developing and promoting organic cotton and textile crafts.

Together with Fashion Declares, and her tiny new craft brand Indilisi [in-dill-iss-ee], Safia is proud to partner with Selvedge magazine on the first day of London Fashion Week to bring you an incredible event at Conway Hall, London with pioneers and craftspeople from India, Bangladesh, Kenya and the UK.’

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If you go to this event, please be sure to say hi.

Thank you for following my journey,

My best,

Sarah x

From the studio No. 37

We’ve come to the end of the year again and I’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas on this shortest day, from deepest darkest drizzly West Wales.

It is the Winter Solstice - Embrace the dark and carry the light.

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It’s been a great year in the SARAH POLAND studio, not without it’s hurdles and losses. I’ve worked hard on building a natural dyed clothing brand and am looking forward to next year - I have a few exciting projects in the pipeline, including a natural dye collaboration and plan to get out and show at various events, including the Frome Independent Market.

I’d love to see you out there somewhere.

Building my website, brand and getting the Ande Bomber ready to launch have been some highlights.

The website has lots of new pages to view - Why I Natural Dye Clothing, Why I Make Clothes In The UK, Zero Waste and Meet The Designer. I also have Archive pages of paintings and prints from over the years.

Exhibition wise it was really exciting to get in to the Royal Scottish Academy AND sell my painting (below). The VAS 100 (Visual Arts Scotland) centenary exhibition did look fantastic in the hallowed halls of the RSA.

Prosodic Chapters Of Immanent Silence.

Oak gall ink on traditional gesso on birch ply panel.

60 x 91cm.

There’s so much to do to start a business, it isn’t just make some stuff and sell it to a shop anymore! To sell online you need all sorts of things in place, a website, branding (plus a rebrand, thanks J.D. Sports!), a privacy policy, a returns policy, product pages, selling paypoint, good photography, GDPR…the list goes on…and on. Put on the spot, I can’t even remember half of it. Responsible, ethical sourcing is BIG.

As I mentioned before, the hurdle to rebrand away from SONNET by Sarah Poland, because of JD Sports’ interference, has taken up some time. I am glad to have fully embraced the change and am going with simply my name, SARAH POLAND. I now have a new logo, garment label and event sign. The website merge with my artist site will take some time, it’s tricky - trying not to over complicate it.

Any thoughts are most welcome.

Here is my new branding:

My time mentoring on the year long course at Newlyn School of Art this year was so fun, finding myself working beside old peers from my time in Cornwall was a joy and taking part in their tutors exhibition an honour.

Fashion On Earth, Bristol Cathedral with Sustainable Fashion Week UK was a blast and what a deadline to work towards! Thanks to Sustainable Studio in Cardiff and St. John’s Hall in Bath for giving me space.

Thanks too to Helen Manley-Jones at Yr Oriel in Newport, Pembrokeshire for always showing my work.

A new gallery who has taken on my Moon Drawing, photographic and oak gall work, is Tides Gallery in Swansea and their new showcase space, Tides Uplands.

Here are some glimpses from throughout the year.

Thank you for following my journey.

Wishing you a warm winter holiday filled with love and friendship.

Keep in touch, my best,

Sarah x

Inspired by 1950s coffee culture (think Beat Generation), 90s London + an inner rock chick fused with the colours of natural dyes.

Coffee bar, intimate gig + cocktail cool, with quality + sustainability at its core.

From the studio No.33

So…I’ve got some news…an update from the previous excitement!

I’ve had a logo made to my design, a sign, woven clothing labels, business cards and bought domain names for SONNET by Sarah Poland.

However, in a David and Goliath scenario, I’ve been pressured into changing my natural dyed clothing brand name (before it’s even launched).

We hear about insecure, avaricious big companies working to squeeze out independents, putting pressure on them in some way with their big buck budgets.

Well, they object to my use of the word sonnet in the name SONNET by Sarah Poland.

It’s JD Sports. They have an in-house, fast fashion, sports wear line who use virgin plastic (polyester) and high production.

It’s called Sonneti.

They’re not using the word sonnet and there are no similarities between our brands or our ideas.

Yet they are able to set out a list of restrictions. However, I refuse to adhere to this bullying tactic.

I’ve had to take down my SONNET by Sarah Poland website and social media accounts …or they might get heavy.

It’s a pain and has cost me a lot development time and money, including buying domain names, woven garment labels, a sign, plus I hired a graphic designer to make the logo to my specification.

So I’ve rebranded to just my name, and I’m getting used to it already. I will see that there is a silver lining, and with both websites merging on to sarahpoland.com, art and fashion will be in the same place.

As an artist and designer, my painting and clothing design do relate to each other, and they both use colours extracted from plants, so perhaps it is for the better and the story continues...

SARAH POLAND - Natural dyed, UK made, limited edition clothing, will embody slow fashion at it’s best.

Inspired by 1950s coffee culture (think Beat Generation), 90s London, an inner rock chick fused with the colours of natural dyes.

Coffee bar, intimate gig + cocktail cool, with quality + sustainability at its core.