TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
The colorful world of Kitty Joseph
For Kitty Joseph, design is all about the heart and the head
Change Size
F
or Kitty Joseph, design is all about the heart and the head.
The British fashion designer works are known to be vibrant and colorful, featuring hand drawings and sketches.
Joseph recently showcased her 2015 Spring/Summer collection at the Jakarta Fashion Week, transforming the views from her South London studio into urban exotic clothes suitable for Indonesian women.
Checkered print motifs and signature Perspex accessories on display in Jakarta echoed the flood of light and color from her studio's geometric framed glass windows as well as London's lights.
Many of her clothes were also inspired by things in her atelier. A bold scrawled flower was a recurring motif in colors reflecting Joseph's stationary box: paper white, highlighter yellow, masking tape cream, sugar paper lilac and biro blue.
Ultra-fine crystal pleating and sharp, orderly knife pleats offered fluidity and freedom within containment and order ' a theme resonant throughout the collection.
'This season, there are many bright colors, but there's this softness ' a lot of white and pastels ' it's a kind of airy palette for this season,' Joseph told The Jakarta Post.
Colors, however, do not only come in one season. Her previous collection, which featured a dark palette, always had a sense of color.
'I feel like color is one of the most expressive tools,' Joseph said. 'There's so much you can say with color. It's almost like a language in itself and has an ability to really lift spirits if you're wearing beautiful colors; it's endless with what you can do playing with color.'
The 27-year-old Joseph was born in London into a family that appreciated the arts: her mother is an illustrator and her grandfather is a painter.
Joseph found a great passion in arts from an early age, although she never imagined that she would be a fashion designer.
'I always loved drawing, painting, color and the decorative arts, but I never imagined that I'd be a designer.'
She followed through her interest by studying textiles and design at the Royal College of Art, earning a master's degree in 2011.
Joseph's final collection explored the theme of embracing the body with colors an attracted a stylist, Kim Howells, who encouraged her to build a career in fashion.
'I came from a slightly different background and I've come into making clothes through a different road, which I think quite interesting,' she said. 'It's different but it's not really. I'm very passionate about it and I feel that it's the right thing.'
Joseph threw herself into fashion, slowly building a reputation as a print fashion designer.
She draws motifs and color by hands, scans the sketches and prints them digitally.
'I do a lot of thing by hand. I think that's something not being done so much in the UK at the moment,' Joseph said. 'Although I'm doing a fashion collection; for me, it's about color and drawing, and the garment being the canvas for those ideas.'
She also designs accessories.
'Accessories are something that's always been going alongside the collection. Often, the accessories are something that I've developed quite quickly, in a fun way, toward the end of the collection,' she said.
Her accessories have been used by celebrities such as singers Lady Gaga and Rita Ora.
'It's wonderful to see young dynamic pop stars wearing your stuff,' Joseph said. 'It definitely gets things to wider audience. It's been very helpful.'
Joseph has also worked as a color consultant for international fashion brands and as a color trend analyst for leading trend prediction agencies. She is now a university course leader on fashion textile and print design.
Her designs have been featured in Vogue UK, Vogue Italia, W Magazin, I-D, Tatler and Hunger magazines, among others. Joseph's works are stocked by various boutiques across Asia, including those in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.
Despite the recognition, Joseph, who likes to jog and do yoga when she can find time, is far from being done.
'I always challenge myself to be at the top of my game. I'm definitely ready to take my brand to another level, preparing some plans and projects to expand the brand and hoping to open up to new markets.'
' JP/ Novia D. Rulistia
