Premier Vision

At the start of this term, in September, I went to Paris for the Premier Vision trade fair. A large group of us from textiles in Practice went together and I found it a great experience.

I don’t know exactly what I was expecting it to be like, but it was much more professional than I had imagined it would be. This was really interesting, as although it meant we couldn’t see lots of the textiles, what we did see was how designers and companies sell and promote their work in a business context.

An overview of the exhibition centre - just a tiny section of it!

Walking around the exhibition centre (which was vast!) it was fascinating to get a feel for the extent of the design industry. Whilst at times it can seem like the creative industry is prohibitively competitive and exclusive, Premier Vision showed the wealth of types of textiles available. As well as this, there were intriguing displays of some of the technology which will facilitate the future of textile design. I find it really interesting that textiles and technology are so intricately interwoven, and dependent on one another.

The TextPrint section of the exhibition was one of my favourite parts. This showcased the work of recent textiles graduates. Some of the things they were working on, from shoes, to garments and jewellery were seriously impressive. It was incredibly inspirational to see their work on show for some of the biggest companies in the textiles industry, and was certainly motivational!

The Print design area was a comprehensive presentation of some of the most exciting commercial designers at the moment. Lots of them seemed to focus on florals and nature in their work, which was helpful for ideas for our floral geometry project. However, in some ways I did find this a bit overwhelming. It seems like the print design world is so saturated with florals that it must be really hard to come up with an original take on them.

Another part of the exhibition which I loved was the trend forecasting area. Here, there were huge banners showing the upcoming colour combinations for the coming seasons, along with examples of popular motifs, moods and textures among lots of other things. Trend forecasting is something which I have begun to investigate having not really know much about it before I started studying textiles. I’m finding it fascinating to see the complex ways in which forecasters can predict what the future of textiles will look like. It’s certainly much more complicated than I ever would have thought and maybe even a career option that I’d like to explore.

Overall, I found Premier Vision an extremely valuable and enjoyable experience, giving me a comprehensive insight into the world of commercial textiles. It also provided lots of ideas for careers beyond my degree.