Prestigious Prize Awarded to Textiles Graduate

Jessie Dickinson, a Textile Design graduate, has won the Wilcom Associate Prize 2018 at the esteemed New Designers event.

Jessie had both of her final year projects on display at New Designers, both heavily centred around digital embroidery. They caught the eye of the European director of Wilcom, who was searching for potential candidates for the prize. The Wilcom Associate Prize honours the best graduate work in the field of digital embroidery and apparel design.

Jessie reflected: "One of my projects was an illustrative piece inspired by the drawings of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, using a combination of geometric line drawing and pops of colour. The final one used digital embroidery to create three dimensional structures inspired by plants and air pollution. I incorporated fibre optics and LEDs into the plants to create the illusion that they were being kept alive by technology.

"I can't quite describe how it feels to have won. Whilst at the New Designers event, I looked around at the other stands, saw the work produced by other graduates and didn't think I had a chance. I'm absolutely thrilled that they singled my work out as the winner and I couldn't continue my love for digital embroidery without their support.

For Jessie, starting a project is all about technique and experimentation, finding a new stich or bead that adds something completely different to each design, and applying it to subject matters that she is particularly interested in such as architecture, structure and botany. During her time at university, Jessie managed to get a three-month work experience in New York, which added greatly to her knowledge and expertise of the industry.

Looking to the future, Jessie is a freelance embroidery specialist and is currently working on several projects for high profile clients. She explained: "I've been working for a costume embroidery designer called Cathryn Avison, doing embroidery for two upcoming Disney films and The Crown season three on Netflix.

"In November, I'll be exhibiting some work I'm working on now in a Knitting and Stitching show hosted in Harrogate and attending the awards night for the Hand and Lock Prize in which I am a finalist!"