Smedley Creations

The lovely people over at John Smedley contacted us at Knit The City and asked us to create a shop window front and installation for their shop in Brook Street. We jumped at the chance to work with such a cool and beautiful knitwear designer.

So, we put our wooly heads together and came up with a concept and a plan of creation. On Monday 11th October, we headed down to the store and installed our pieces along with an opening/installation party where members of Stitch London were invited to come and see us in action together with a discount off of the gorgeous knitwear.

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT THE FASTENER 2010

We each contributed different pieces, some of us creating mini people wearing some iconic smedley pieces, and some creating winged friends to fly around the store. There was also a recreation of the iconic smedley bridge which connects two parts of the factory together at the brand’s home in Lea Mills, Derbyshire, and a number of small scenes depicting parts of the company’s history.

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT THE FASTENER 2010

The iconic smedley bridge, created by myself with a little help from Deadly Knitshade and Shorn-a-the-dead:

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT THE FASTENER 2010

Here’s the small scene that I created depicting the victorian era when Smedley first started making underwear. It has been said that the term ‘Long Johns’ comes from John Smedley first creating the idea of knitted trousers worn as an undergarment. I used wire, wool, machine embroidery, smedley garment off cuts from their factory, felt, plastazote and swarovski crystals.