MOVERS & SHAKERS
This forward-thinking designer combines classic draughtsmanship with cutting-edge techniques to produce striking fabrics and wallpapers
Kit Miles on how he uses digital technology to create fabrics and wallpapers that dazzle with pattern and colour.
Using innovative digital technology, Kit Miles produces vivid printed fabrics and wall coverings known for their vibrant colour, bold pattern and futuristic composition. Winner of the Homes & Gardens 2016 Best New Designer award, Kit studied textile design at the Royal College of Art before launching his studio in 2011. His work can be found in Liberty as well as London’s Groucho Club and the Mandarin Oriental hotel.
I try to open a porthole into a new, vivid reality with every design that I conceive. The aim is to combine scale with surrealist touches and incredible colour. I collect files of drawings, photographs and web-based research, which form the core of my inspiration.
Many designers think that digital is faster or less worthy of care and attention, but that’s not the case. For me, the question has always been how can we exploit its unique capability to apply images to materials and bring something new to print design? The pencil was once considered cutting edge; now it’s seen as an organic medium. In the same way, digital will one day be regarded as ‘hand’. When it comes to building a world, tech helps us see beyond the limitations of our senses. I don’t think of my work as digital, I see it simply as design.
My day is filled with hundreds of micro decisions, from which colour I should use for a particular design to how deeply a leather sample should be embossed. Wallpaper presents di≠erent challenges to fabric; in turn, fabrics each have their own nuances, from velvet to cotton. When it comes to designing motifs, cushions are a very interesting platform as the scale and interaction of a small piece is so di≠erent from the impact of a large-scale wallpaper design.
I work from a really inspiring building tucked away in Wapping’s Old Pennington Street. My studio functions well as a space because I designed everything to be collapsible and moveable to reveal one big square area, perfect for laying out fabrics and brainstorming.
I’m influenced by lots of people from the world of design. My fantasy dinner guests would be the late architect Zaha Hadid, because she warped our understanding of possibility with her gravity defying structures, interior designer Kelly Wearstler, whose ideas and business skills I admire, and art critic Waldemar Januszczak, because he writes about Renaissance art in a way that I haven’t encountered before.
My designs are often tried out at home. I live in a late-victorian end-of-terrace in Deptford and it’s a good backdrop for my cushions. The prints bring a sense of modernity and colour to the space. I haven’t yet hung any of my wallpaper designs, but Birds in Chains in bright orange is on my list for the hallway. I also love Fretwork, because it’s so adaptable and suits many di≠erent contexts.
My work is considered to be quite futuristic. I like to think of it as both looking to the future and back to the past to make a new present. All my designs start life as a hand drawing, enabling me to unlock the world of my imagination. History interests me because the power of storytelling is important; likewise, I’m inspired by the cutting-edge sciences that are blossoming during this current golden age. Harnessing the past and the future is the cornerstone of each of my collections.”
Kit Miles, The Rum Factory, Bow Arts, Unit 4 Pennington Street Warehouse, Pennington Street, London E1W 2BD, kitmiles.co.uk.