ph. Lou Melchior
This season, Paris Essex blankets escape to be worn in the great outdoor: The latest collection of wearable blankets explores playful narratives in a multi-coloured world where distinctions between craft and design, high art and low culture are blurred.
Each Paris Essex creation represents a creative dialogue between partners, Carolyn Clewer and Tiphaine de Lussy; the two take it in turns to work with crochet and knit, using luxurious blends of mohair, wool and super-synthetics to craft cosy blanket-like pieces that can dress the body or the home. Each blanket is unique and is individually created by the Paris Essex partnership, in a process like painting or collage, taking on its own personality as it grows organically and fluidly.
ph. Lou Melchior
Inspired by the daily juxtapositions of playful fantasy and strange reality in London life and childhood memories; carnivals, markets , characters, posters and art. The colours are vibrant and bold, creating a spectrum of primaries, neons and offbeat pastels. Luxury wools, merino, mohair, alpaca and lambswool make friends with synthetics, ribbon, eyelash and chenilles. Faces and characters appear amongst rainbow stripes, harlequin pattern and tropical leaves. These statement pieces take the blanket from indoors to become outerwear; layered and worn as giant ponchos, capes, shawls and wraps.
ph. Lou Melchior
Paris Essex is renowned for creating crazy, cosy handcrafted blankets using combinations of hand and machine techniques. Founded by Carolyn Clewer, the Essex girl and Parisienne, Tiphaine de Lussy, Paris Essex is the result of years of collaboration between the two knitwear and textiles specialists, who first met over 20 years ago at the Royal College of Art in London .
The partnership has a long history rooted in fashion, with an archive including knitwear and accessory collections and collaborations. They share a visual language and are drawn to the materials, processes and pace of fashion, the continual reinvention and juxtaposition of ideas. Paris Essex creations are available for sale, by commission or through collaboration. Every piece is unique and unrepeatable, carefully conceived and hand-crafted in London.
