Hi, I'm Emily Keller and this is my friend Rikki. She's the founder of Ikki,
'Small But Brave' which is a baby clothes line based here in Shanghai. Where are
you from? Where did you grow up and what's your background in fashion or in
textiles? I come from South Africa did you know that? I knew that. Oh so I
come from South Africa and I was born in Durban but my mom is German so I grew up
speaking German to my mom and English to my dad. So I went to school until I was
18 in South Africa and then I moved to Germany and did a German Abitur which is
the equivalent of the last year of schooling in Germany because we only
have 12 years of schooling in South Africa so in order to study in Germany I
had to do that extra year which I did in Hamburg. Yeah and then I studied textile
engineering in Germany for five years. But prior to deciding to study
that I actually spent some time in Italy, in Prato which is near Florence
because both my parents are textile engineers I didn't want to
do that just because they were doing that. Actually I hated the idea of doing
what my parents did so then my dad said to me, "Don't do anything for me. If you
want to see if it's something that you really like then why don't you go to
Prato." We have some family friends there that I could live with and then I had
the experience to visit textile mills and to see the whole process. To see if
it was really something that I enjoyed and then after that experience I decided
that I wanted to go into textiles and then decided to study textile
engineering rather than design because it would just give me a broader scope of
things that I could do and I'm not really a designer. I prefer the technical
part of it so yeah so that's what I did. Did you focus on wool when you studied
textiles or at that time not really? Everything so it's like yes it's basically mechanical
engineering with specialization in textiles so it's very much the machinery,
the process and then we also look into all the different fibers
from cotton, polyester, natural, synthetic. Kind of you learned like how
they're all processed? How they're processed yeah the the
mechanical process for the different types of fabric constructions but also
in the different areas, so not just apparel, so geotextiles, medical textiles
Textiles is just what I happen to... Apparel is just what I
happened to get into but but we did everything and all fibers so yeah so and
I specialized in textile technology so you could do textile management which
would have been more you know not getting into the technical side of
things but until the end I chose the pure engineering route which was very
technical. I wish we had that, because I did the fashion design major and we I
mean probably barely scratched the surface of learning that kind of stuff.
Yeah I think it really really helps and later we actually realized that if I
realized that about designers actually because when I was working in Italy in
the spinning mill they used to come to Pitti Filati, you know and come select the
yarn colors and and then they would have these ideas of what they wanted to do
which was all wonderful but not executional in the real practical sense
so and we always used to say oh you know the designers should get more technical. But maybe they thought
that we should be more I don't know it goes both ways right maybe why don't you
guys know how to design. I mean I always felt that way and I always kind of even
though I did the design major I um I kind of felt more comfortable at the
technical side of like knitwear. I studied specialized in knitwear I was
always more comfortable with like the machines and knowing how they worked. I
was really surprised when I got into the fashion design industry like working how
many knitwear designers don't know anything about the machines, the
capabilities, the limitations. Yeah I was really amazed that they just they just
sketch things designers will sketch things and they'll hand it over to the
factory and there'd be like what we can't do this yeah they won't know why
they won't understand you know and if anything I'm like oh it's because this
this doesn't make sense they can't do this you know the machine can't do this.
I thought that was really interesting. Let's see so after college
then what did you do? You went to college in Germany right?
Yes a college yeah yeah we call it okay in the States, college is University right?
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. So I mean actually the way this the system is set
up in Germany is you have to do one year Theory, six month Prac, one year Theory,
six month Prac, one year Theory and then you write your thesis. So actually during
my studies for my first after my first year I spent six months in Italy in a
factory Marzotto, which is the you know that's another very small factory it was
the mother company of Hugo Boss at one stage, and now they are no longer
affiliated but they're it's a vertical mill in a very small town called
Valdagno, near Vicenza and basically I worked there for five months
through every department as a shift worker so I worked in all the different
departments and weaving spinning dying but I had overalls on, a helmet, you know
protection boots and I did all the work myself you know and I have to
say even after that was in the third semester and even after the whole I'd
finished my whole five year degree and those six months were still the six
months I learned the most because yeah because I had really worked on a
spinning machine, attached the ends you know and had my own weaving loom.
When the weft broke I had to know how to change the gear to get it running
again and then I worked in the dyeing
Department and yeah it was great and it was also a great way to learn the
language because you know no one could speak English and no one could speak
German so I had to learn Italian, and doing something while you're you know while
you're learning a language is so much easier because you have visuals yeah
yeah you have visuals exactly that. So that was the third semester then I went
back for another year Theory to Germany and then I did six months in England in
the north of England between Yorkshire and Lancashire those two
counties are known for wool and cotton so this little town was exactly
on the border and I worked there in Willesden Printing so that was a company
that did rotary printing for interior textiles.
So I did a practical there and then went back to University for a year and then I
did my thesis in Australia on and that's where I went specifically into woo. l did
a six-month thesis time in CSIRO which is a Research Institute in
Melbourne Australia actually Geelong near Melbourne and yeah and there I
researched on that was actually official research that would then need to be
inserted into other papers we had to do some official you know sort of pieces
with our own research behind it working together with the team there
at CSIRO, and there I worked on very technical and boring I think for
everyone but it was the effect of shrink proofing on differently crimped walls so
you know. Wool can have a high crimp or low cream yes and so I processed this
wool and saw how different types of shrink proofing which basically makes
the wool to not felt. So how the different waviness
or crimp of the wool would be effect affect the the effectiveness of
the shrink proofing that's how I finished my degree final thesis on and
So you traveled a lot like during school. That's really cool. Yeah I
mean that's because. I think there was a time when in Germany
they thought all these graduates from University not really practical in there
in converting the theoretical knowledge what they'd learned at University into
the workplace and I already went to the way I studied textile engineering was
it's translated into University and English so it is called Reutlingen
University but it's already a more practical based university because of
the type of content that it is right but yeah I think other
universities the pure theoretical universities also have sort of
transformed their way of educating if you like because they realize that once
you come out of university if you haven't had any practical experience you
know then there's very little value in that.
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