Marielle Kirsten Thomson, from Orkney, wanted to be a fashion designer or a vet when she was a little girl.
The 28-year-old now runs Marielle K, where she designs and makes beautiful fabrics.
What fabrics do you use?
Unique prints, designed in my Orkney studio, are transposed onto exquisite fabrics such as silk, wool, velvet and linen.
How do you create the designs?
They begin as a series of sketches and paintings from my gathered sources of inspiration. I experiment with colour and scale, as well as texture and pattern as I develop these original artworks into designs suited to fashion or interiors, or both alike.
If the design is to be screen printed, as opposed to being digitally printed, I may have to reconsider colour palettes, or pattern layout, due the nature of the processes and materials used.
Where did you do your training?
I started my art studies at Orkney College, before moving to Glasgow to do an HND in Textiles for Fashion at Cardonald College. I loved my time there, and learned lots of skills which I took through my degree. I completed both my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at Heriot-Watt’s School of Textiles and Design in Galashiels. I specialised in printed textiles, predominantly screen printing.
Have you always been a creative person?
As a child, and with my siblings, we always enjoyed drawing and painting. When visiting my maternal granny we would happily spend hours with her making beautiful things from her collection of fabrics. She is very talented and has been a real source of inspiration.
My paternal granny influenced me in her love of clothes and jewellery and dramatic sense of style while my own mother is both a naturalist and an aesthete and is constantly sharing ideas for new collections.
I have a large, supportive family here in Orkney, I’m very lucky. I am a new mummy to my nearly 10-month-old daughter, called Layla Jane Eleri Nourse, after my identical twin. I absolutely love motherhood, and find my daughter an inspiration in my work. My fiance’s side of the family are from South Africa, so we have family over there too.
How did the idea for the business start out?
I love creating beautiful things, and I love being able to create them from the first imagining, to the finished piece. This takes an investment of time and love; and is what drove me to set up my own company.
Is it difficult to run a business from Orkney?
I think in many ways I am lucky to run a business here in Orkney. The biggest difficulty is the cost of getting materials sent here. I would like to source some of my fabrics closer to home if there were more opportunities available.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
My inspiration for, and love of, fashion and textiles has more than a superficial resonance; it is about aesthetics; art and the zeitgeist. My aesthetic is one whose source is fed by the beauty of the natural world. I find beauty in the natural landscape, in all its forms. My signature collection, James Sinclair Flora, in particular, pays homage to the flora discoveries of my ancestor, a renowned botanist from Hoy, Orkney.
I still love to do what I did as a child and that is to sit at a table with lots of fabric pieces and some inspiration from a book or a magazine and see what I can create. I have decided that I would like to return to my drawing and painting, something I miss from student days and being outside, amongst nature, perhaps going on a little adventure with either my fiance or my sisters and our children.
Chris, myself and Layla recently went on a short holiday to the Loch Ness area where we spent several happy days exploring the area on bikes. Layla, only eight months old then, absolutely loved being on the back of the bike. She shows all the signs of being an independent adventurer.
Tell me about the manufacturing process.
Pieces from my collections which are screen printed, are done by hand by me here in Orkney. I hand dye the fabric and then print onto it using a silk screen. It is a timely process of testing, and preparing. Each piece is unique to the next, which is the beauty of screen printing.
One piece can take many hours from start to finish. I think there can quite often be a one-dimensional view on the amount of work that goes into the process.
Once the fabric has been stem finished, it is ready to be sewn. I sometimes do this, or get the help of a local seamstress. My digitally printed pieces are printed in Scotland, and sent back to me for sewing.
What is your favourite item?
My current favourite item is my silk crepe Dark Flora Skinny Scarf, from my new collection, Dark Flora. My all-time favourite piece is my hand-dyed and printed velvet stole from my James Sinclair Flora Collection. I wear it on special occasions.
