Medium: Fashion artefacts - wearable art pieces in leather

Website: http://www.unaburke.com

Una Burke was also shortlisted for the Golden Fleece Award in 2010

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My career as a leather worker began when I started working with this wonderful material during my degree in Fashion Design at LSAD in 2001. After graduating I worked in several accessories design studios before returning to study in 2007 where I specialized in leatherworking and received a Distinction in my Masters in Fashion Artefact. My graduate collection, 'RE.TREAT', was constructed entirely by hand and used only the traditional skills of leatherworking. This collection won the London College of Fashion "Off Catwalk" Award for Design 2009 and I have since won eight Design and Craft awards and have been shortlisted for several other prizes both nationally and internationally. My sculptural leather pieces have featured in Fashion, Art and Craft events across the world. With so much interest in my work it made sense to start producing more wearable leather pieces that I could show during London and Paris Fashion Weeks. I remain true to the traditional techniques of leatherworking and every piece is produced by hand in my South London based working studio. Here I teach my students the skills of this craft and they help me to produce my collections each season.

My proposal for the use of this award would be to invest it in creating a new collection of work which would sell in my own new retail space within a large designer store in Notting Hill in West London. This would be an incredible possibility for growth for my brand and the benefit of this is that 90% of all sales would return directly into the company instead of the normal retail situation where I would only receive about a third of the sale price and the retailer would receive about 60%. The store is called Wolf and Badger and they have had a phenomenal response from the press and all aspects of the fashion industry, regarding their incredible support of young creative individuals. Of course there are fees involved. According to my estimations, the rental of this space for the contract of the first 3 months and the investment into producing stock of this initial new collection would cost me around £12,000 at least. With the aid of funding from the Golden Fleece Award this opportunity could really become a reality and the possibilities that will arise as a result will surely make it an exciting project to watch prosper and flourish.

Through my work I continually aim to create objects which are both visually captivating and technically challenging. They are pieces of wearable art that are often indefinable as particular garments, preventing them from being placed into the conventional categories of the fashion industry.These pieces can also be displayed very comfortably in a gallery environment, arousing emotions and feelings within the viewer. Free to exist as independent forms, these pieces can be interpreted accordingly by each individual.

Using traditional leatherworking techniques to produce these evocative, conceptual creations, I hope to encourage a new and more modern appreciation for leather craftsmanship, presenting the possibilities achievable through the use of this material in the areas of art, craft and design. I am extremely passionate about my trade and I feel very saddened by the fact that there are so few leatherworkers left in Ireland when this industry has been such a remarkable part of our culture and heritage. In order to counteract this I am taking on apprentices, many of whom are Irish, in my London Atelier and teaching them my leatherworking skills which they can use in their own college work and studio practice.

I hope some day, after I move back to Ireland, that I will be able to run classes to teach these leatherworking skills on a more formal basis and eventually develop and expand my leatherworking studio so that I would have work spaces available to members and students so that they would have access to the necessary facilities, machinery and equipment that are specific to the leather industry.