A Conversation with Knitwear Designer Ellis David on Bringing Handmade to Fashion Week

Ellis David is a knitwear designer based in Yorkshire and a recent graduate of Sheffield Hallam University. His designs have already been shown at multiple Fashion Weeks including York Fashion Week and the newly-established West Yorkshire Fashion Week. In our interview with him, he discusses topics such as: sustainability, what makes his brand unique, being self-employed in the industry, ADHD and his future.

Q: How would you describe your brand in terms of style/aesthetics?

Ellis: At the moment, I would say very unique as my designs are one-off. I would say very textural because one of the things that I like to do is explore the world through touch as well as looking at things.

Like I did a fashion week a couple of weeks back- the York Fashion Week- and basically, I was holding the pieces and two of people that were like helping out, the runners, came up and said: “Can we touch the pieces?”, and I was like: “Yeah sure”. But yeah, I’d say that like tactile, very creative, like sort of breaking the rules. If they were hung up somewhere, I think I would like people to explore them, obviously being gentle because they are mine.

I’d say traditional, maybe in a sense, because it is traditionally done by hand, all the pieces are done by hand. I think I’ve used a machine twice, and that was due to a certain fabric that I was trying to sew or like putting stuffing into knitwear, so obviously it had to be secure, but apart from that, every piece is done by hand, no machine, knitting machine or anything involved.

What I find is a lot of people are a bit surprised that I do it by hand, even industry people. A lot of them, it’s a bit like… imagine they’re on the phone, they go: “Oh, you do knitting by machine”, and I go: “No, by hand”, and they’re like: “Call back later”…as if it’s something very rare.

Q: Do you think that’s a positive reaction to you hand-knitting?

Ellis: Oh yeah, positive, really positive.

I’m not sure but there’s definitely been a shift towards hand-knitting…I think it’s the authenticity…But um, I would say with hand there’s more of a craft element, especially like living in Yorkshire, there’s a bit more of a revival of Yorkshire being used in film…I know someone who specialises in doing fisherman’s jumpers and she lives in Whitby. The film Phantom Threads, that was filmed around Whitby and a few other places around Yorkshire, and she was actually asked if they could borrow 2 of her jumpers…And she still uses the traditional techniques. So I’d say there’s a bit of a revival in hand craft over mass produced.

Q: Would you say your designs are more sustainable because they are hand-made by one person?

Ellis: Yes, and also, all the wool is from charity shops or pre-owned. At the start, it wasn’t intentional, it’s just the price of wool in shops in general is quite expensive. And yeah, basically, it became that sustainable angle as times changed. But once that wool’s gone, it’s gone. So that sort of ties in again with the sort of ‘one-off’ design aspect.

Q: Would you say your brand is quite colourful? Do you lean towards more colourful designs?

Ellis: Yeah definitely. Well recently I made a jumper, well it was for a commission, but it was in monochrome, I put it on my Insta, but that’s the first time I’ve made one that’s a restricted palette. Because normally, I just chuck it all together, like a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but I am thinking maybe diversifying into block colours but still doing different textures.

Q: I saw on your Instagram that you had some sketches, like drawings, do you also do that as well?

Ellis: Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. It depends… When I was doing my final year at uni, the way I did illustrations was I cut it out, laid it on the mannequin, on the template, then scanned it in afterwards to create different shapes. That’s how I did the illustrations…but in general I don’t do many sketches. But it depends, if I’m thinking about doing a certain thing, because with them being a very certain silhouette, it is difficult to comprehend.

Q: When did you first learn to knit? What inspired you?

Ellis: I started knitting when I was 16, and what inspired me was, well I was at college, and basically they tried to teach us it, and I just couldn’t do it. But when I talked to my mum, she said that could be something you could look at, as an extra skill. And my nan actually knits… and with my nan, we sat down and was like doing it step by step gradually. So that’s the sort of learner I am; I can’t just pick something up like that, it takes time. So she taught me the basics, and we just started off doing strips of 10, then 20, and so on. Then it just went on from there. But one of the things is a lot of the designs I make, they’re just 2 pieces that I sew together. Like say 2 massive rectangles, or a rectangle you fold in half, like they’re very simple things to knit. So that also adds to like creating shape easily, especially when using thick yarns. Um, I would also say YouTube helped with the smaller things, just like casting on and off. But overall I’d say, it was my nan that sort of helped me and it just went off from there.

Because like I’ve ended up knitting with plastic bags, rya, string. I’ve only used plastic bags once, and rya I’ve only done once. So obviously not practicality wise, but I have used them in an experimental way.

Q: Why did you decide to specialise in knitwear rather than other kind of textiles? Because you studied Fashion Design, didn’t you? Did you try out a few different things?

Ellis: Yeah, I was knitting and originally it was done when I was at college, like I did a sample where I knitted with some string, and this technician said: “That should be what you should go into, you should do that, because there’s less competition but also because that’s really interesting that you’re knitting with string.” But then also I’d say on my course, we did a bit of everything. So, I did incorporate knitting in some parts of the different things, but we never did like a knit project…But I’d say for knitwear, the only time we actually did a proper collection was my final year when we could decide what we wanted to do.

Q: Do you have any Fashion Weeks coming up?

Ellis: Yes, it’s called West Yorkshire Fashion Week… They’ve just been started. It was set up by someone who I do know… And it’s meant to be aimed at making fashion weeks more affordable, because a lot of them are quite expensive. Yeah so, she’s tried to make it as cheap as possible for people, especially students.

 

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Q: Do you think that would also benefit people who are lower income as well?

Ellis: Yeah, because I remember looking at some of them, they were like in the thousands or more… The ticket costs for the train, plus hotel, plus the show, so I’d say, yeah, especially for lower income people just starting out. I mean a lot of these fashion weeks, they have possibilities, it’s just the cost…also finding the opportunities in the North of England too is difficult in the industry.

And I know a student who’s in second year at uni, second or final year, and she’s doing the show. So there’s even people who haven’t graduated uni yet who are taking part. That’s how cheap and good price it is, that people who are at uni come and think: “Oh yeah, I can do that”.

Q: Is that how you got into York Fashion Week? Meeting people through university?

Ellis: Well, I live half an hour away from York, I’ve gone there a lot since I was little, and it’s a really nice place. So, I’d seen that they do fashion week in the past, and they’ve had quite big names showcasing there; I think they had Charlotte Crosby showing there and Alexander McQueen’s nephew, who’s a print designer.

So I sent an application whilst I was on my placement year…but basically, they announced the schedule, this was last year, and I thought: “Oh, I haven’t got in”, because I hadn’t got asked or anything. But the day after, I was doing something on my laptop and I got an email on my phone from the person who ran it…anyways so I opened up my phone and it said: “we’d like to offer you a space, you’ve got a 20 minute gap, it’s on the independent runway, we’d like to offer you it”. And so that’s how I got in, but immediately I was just like, I couldn’t even speak, I was just like when I was showing my mum and step-dad, I had my phone next to me and I was like mumbling and they were like: “What?”, and I couldn’t even… all I could say was: “Read this”, and they were like: “What?”. So I gave them my phone and they were like: “It’s locked”, and I unlocked it and I gave them it back, and they went: “Ooo great, so are you gonna do it?”. And I was like: “Yes, yes!”, so that’s basically how it happened.

But I’d say one of the things that is nice about York though is that it’s very nurturing…no nastiness, no mean nothing…its just a nice big family.

For example, one of the first times I did it, I started crying when my applauses were going on. Because I was excited at the runway and I was crying like: “Omg I can’t believe this is happening, this is like my dream”…one of the people who runs it, Nicky, she went: “Well done, you’ve done so well”. That’s what it was like, that’s the sort of environment it was.

Q: You were discussing on your Instagram how you have ADHD and Autism. How do you think that impacts your work?

Ellis: I’d say it is a superpower…one of the people I do go to for advice is a designer called Helen Steele, and she was a big inspiration for me because she has ADHD. Her work is very colourful, like print design based. So I was officially diagnosed at 16, but I didn’t start looking into how it affected me until I started looking at it in my work, like using it in my work as inspiration. And I was looking at people who had done the same, so when I came across her and I was reading through her articles, it was exactly what I experienced with having ADHD.

I see it in the way I do shape and form differently. One of the examples I can think of is, when I was in college, for our final year project we got given a word and we had to expand on the word. So we got identity. A lot of people were doing gender, and so on, some people did personality disorder and all that. Immediately to me, I saw facial identity, face and then facial deformation. So straight away in my head, these little stepping stones just went like that… I remember a lot of people saying: “That’s very abstract, how have you gone from that to that to that?”.

So, I’d say it helps me think more abstract, but like as I said the textural element. It creates a bit of a childish sense, in a playful sense. I like people to touch the work if it was hung up or something, not just sit there and look at it. I like the: “Ooo that’s interesting, what’s this?”.

I don’t know, maybe there’s a demand for textural pieces in recent times. Like fidget toys and goo. And so maybe people might want clothes and stuff that they can touch for comfort. I think that might be one of the reasons it’s coming back, that feeling of having a comfort blanket, but as a dress or top. So I’d say also it makes people rethink fashion.

Colour as well, because I like to explore colour with different emotions. I try to not use too many darks at once, because when I used block colours to make that jumper that was commissioned, I sort of just wanted to grab a bit of purple or something, or yellow and green. It was just grey and black, grey and black. It just felt like I was going against my own aesthetic.

Q: Do you think being self-employed, rather than working for someone else, benefits you?

Ellis: Hmm, I don’t know. So I was officially not classed a student last summer, and I’d say it is a lot tougher to get those opportunities. The thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of people don’t seem to be giving, not to sound nasty or anything to people in the industry, but people in the industry are not giving new people enough opportunity. And like I have had opportunities, and I am very grateful. For example, I reached out to the costume designer who did Wednesday, and he said: “Well I don’t need anything at the moment, but if I do, I’ll come to you”.

But I do think some people aren’t giving people a chance. Like one magazine recently said that they have brands that they want to use and they have standards, and I was like “oh, thanks”. That’s the thing, a lot of people either don’t reply or they don’t seem interested in giving people a chance. I think more stylists and magazine editors should be looking towards the graduates, they need to take the younger generation more seriously.

Q: What are your plans for the next year? Do you have any new collections planned?

Ellis: At the moment, I’d say for future collections, it depends really. I have started looking at menswear. Overall, I’d say the big future prospects would be to establish myself as a knitwear designer, like as a well-known designer. But I do know that it would take a lot of hard work to create a fashion house and all that, I know it will. But I’d say at the moment, I’m trying to find a job where I can get experience, and just getting my work noticed more, and just reaching out to more people. Like Elizabeth Hurley and the Versace dress, I’m just waiting for my version of that moment.

Find Ellis David Knitwear on Instagram: (click here)