Chloe Andrews – who studies Textiles at Loughborough and specialises in printed textiles – was announced as the winner of the Kingfisher Design Talent Award last week.
This award is given to a designer who is able to demonstrate both creativity and a commercial understanding, with a diverse approach to surface design.
In addition, they were looking to identify a graduate who demonstrated a sound understanding and use of colour, with an ability to visualise collections across the home.
Chloe’s collection, Swedish Escape, is an elegant interior collection influenced by the city of Stockholm, where she undertook her placement year.
Her work focuses on bringing the outdoors into the home, and features enchanting scenes from the Swedish landscape, and was influenced by Wes Anderson’s colour palettes, prints by Missoni and Marimekko, folkloric tales as well as artists such as Paula Jenkins, Katherine Dunlap and Jess Franks.
Image: 'Swedish Escape' by Chloe Andrews
As a result of being awarded the prize, Chloe has been offered a six-month paid internship with the Kingfisher team, who are based in Southampton.
Speaking about the news, Chloe said: “It felt overwhelming to have won an award and I was delighted to have been recognised for my use of colour in a very inspiring way.”
Fellow student Megan Hilliard was also awarded the Wilcom Associate Prize, which is given to an individual who shows creativity and commercial understanding of today’s diverse digital embroidery design requirements.
The Integrated Digital Practice student was praised highly by the judges, who commented ‘Megan’s processes are well considered, and she has a keen ambition to bring back upholstery embellishment into niche UK markets’.
Image: 'El Jardin' by Megan Hilliard
Megan’s interior design collection El Jardin is based on a research project she undertook in Seville, where she looked at the relationship between growth and decay. She uses digital techniques which make her work look hand-embroidered on first appearance. Megan has been awarded £6,000 worth of software and online training as a result of winning the Associate Prize.
In addition, two students specialising in Textiles have been chosen for a prestigious mentor programme called TexSelect.
Jo Rance and Flora Daly competed against 200 of the top graduates from Textile Design degree programmes from across the UK, including at postgraduate level. Only 24 are picked for the programme, which enables the designers to gain first-hand experience of the industry by attending one of the biggest textile trade shows in Europe, Première Vision Paris.
They are also introduced to buyers at the TexSelect London Preview and have opportunities to take up internships and be trained up on specialist CAD software.
To see the full list of prize winners at Week 1 of New Designers, visit the dedicated website. To find out more about Loughborough University’s Design students and their products which are exhibiting at New Designers this week, check out the news story here.