Al Bates is a Textile Designer and Artist based in Glasgow. She completed her degree in 2021 at the Edinburgh College of Art, achieving a First-Class BA Honour’s in Textile Design. Her work aims to utilise various fabrics as a space for comfort and growth, in the context of the home. Her practice is rooted in an awareness and consideration of the ethical impacts of the industry, and she thrives to work sustainably to produce pieces that leave no waste. Combining various techniques, her unique approach juxtaposes textures to create modern and distinctive pieces that are one off’s, hand crafted and made with care to last.

Instagram: @als_studio_

This collection is a curation of beautiful compositions, curved lines and sensually intriguing surfaces. Each piece reflects a playful confinement of organic forms and home nostalgia, designed to transform and soothe an interior space as well as ourselves. By combining certain pieces within the collection, you can create three different interior ambiences’ Play, Soothe and Fuse, offering a versatile collection that differs in scale, sensory stimulation, weight, and enables the collection to be adaptable to the individuals’ emotional needs. Every piece has been designed to be long lasting, timeless and made using sustainably conscious methods such as sourcing dead-stock yarns and off-cut fabrics. They are a celebration of contemporary textile art and handcrafted design.

Where would you like your work to take you?

I want my work to lead me to a place of belonging and growth. I want to find my place within this industry, to form connections with companies and other designers that hold the same sustainable values and put the same care and consideration into their discipline as myself.

Which part of your creative process do you enjoy most?

The physical making is when I feel most at ease and in my element, specifically making with no plan at all. I find that the pieces I have created spontaneously are my most successful. There is something so lovely about just seeing how it goes and almost letting your subconscious take over your creative decisions.

Where do you draw inspiration from?

My inspiration for this particular project came from many things, one being the desperation I felt for more space. I designed and produced my whole collection from one room this year due to the UK lockdowns; the biggest difficulty of this being that I really struggled to prioritize different spaces of my room for different activities like eating, sleeping, working, relaxing etc. The frustration and unsettlement I felt trying to eat and relax in the same spot I’d been working in all day made me want to create a collection that helped one space feel like three. I did this through designing a collection that varies in weight, colour combinations, level of sensory stimulation and scale. By combining different pieces together, they can be used to create three different ambiences, Play, Soothe and Fuse.

Another huge inspiration is my Grandma, Margaret, who as well as being the women who taught me how to knit, sew and make origami frogs, has the most wonderous garden and home, all of which have been a direct design influence for this collection.

What piece of music would you say compliments your work the most?

River Man by Nick Drake

Can you list a couple other creatives/friends/people you look to for inspiration?

Holly Crerar / Josh Croll / Olivia May Pearson / Ellie Butler / Scott Sharp / Heather Belcher / Madge Gill / Lucienne Day