His collections were usually controversial, but that term goes nowhere to describing the immense skill and intellect behind a man who is responsible for the consistent and unyielding elevation of his fashion into the realm of art. He influenced a generation, and not just in his homeland of Britain, but in the minds of designers and those who followed his work from the far reaches of the world.

He will be greatly missed, and has left a magnificent legacy. His final collection has an ironic bitter-sweet and eerily poignant emphasis; the beauty of the butterfly. images from style.com. Below is a clip of his Paris fall 2006 collection with Kate Moss in hologram.

Sandra Backlund is a textile artist, a fashion sculptor and a knitter. Her work is structurally convoluting, winding around the body, or interacting with it in some other ingenious way. The voluminous shapes evolve out of her fascination with the human body. Backlund is ever intrigued with the prospect of ‘highlighting, distorting or transforming’ . The sculptural garments evolve from a simple brick shape that is added onto, multiplied and attached in different ways.

These strange forms of soft woolliness and cavernous hollows make you want to crawl inside them, whether to hide or to be seen all the more. There is a quality within them that reaches into the senses and draws a response. This is not surprising given the exploratory nature of Backlund’s design development. The garments crawl and grow around the body. It’s a truly bespoke interaction, which is inherently a knit-wear quality to heart. Backlund is taking that humble knit chain and giving us something altogether considered, explored and exciting. Watch for her work and you will see the evolution of an artist on the fashion stage.

Nadelstern’s repeat block format is based around repeating segments of a circle, and the interaction of selected textile print fabrics to create visual anomalies.  She is inspired by the ever shifting forms in Kaleidoscopes and the ever-changing crystaline formations of snowflakes. The relationship of one fabric patch to another is controlled by the geometric parameters that can be taken out of a shape with a 360° limit at it’s core .

On display were a remarkable selection of creations by some of the country’s finest Kaleidoscope makers. Many of these ‘mechanisms’ hold found objects that are manipulated with light and motion to achieve mesmerizing tessellated patterns. Of particular interest was Oddysey#2, a piece by Charles Karadimon, a master kaleidoscope maker since 1975, who hand crafts all the mechanisms, glass and construction himself. Another interesting piece; ‘Honey Jar’ by Henry Bergeson . A catalogue and other publications are available at the museum shop.

Found materials and gathered matter is the construct of many a patch-worked textile as it is also with the ‘contents’ that create the patterns in a Kaleidoscope. It seems fitting that there is a dialogue between the two mediums, both operating on the same principle of playing with the ‘found’.