T E N S Studio
I was born in Northwest London, we moved about a bit and then I moved back to London when I was 18. I'm a textiles and clothing designer, I've been doing that for the past five years. Before that I worked in a secondary school with kids with learning or behavioural difficulties.
When I left school, I went to Camberwell College of arts and did a foundation. It was really fun, but also a bit of a shock because I stayed in the cheapest halls and I didn't have any money because I didn't have a job and you couldn't get a loan then. My Dad bought me the biggest bag of pasta to eat, and my shoes had holes in so my feet would get wet. I was getting the bus because I couldn't afford the tube as it was so far from my halls, I kind of felt like I was a bit of an outcast there. I was quite good at art though, I didn't even know that you could go to University to study it. I remember my friends Mum telling me there was a whole art college and I thought right I’m going to do that, because it’s what I enjoy.
I struggled through. I didn't really know who I was or my place in the world. I hadn't really established that yet. I didn't have that much experience or knowledge and I didn't really feel like I had the equipment to be confident at University. My coping strategy was to smoke a lot of weed and not turn up. I just thought, I don't really care about it because if I don't care and I don't try, then I can't really fail. So I didn't really do any work until the very last project. I thought I was bound to fail because I hadn’t done any work the whole time but I worked really hard on that project and I got a 2:2 in the end. That was my art degree.
To be honest, I wish that I'd done a different degree. I knew that I was interested in textiles but I kind of just felt like that was a boring option or something, because there were these new subjects, so I thought they must be much better. After Uni I got a job in a school, I didn’t think that I could be an artist or have a career in the creative industry. I didn't feel like I really knew anything about it. We didn't really get taught how to get paid for being creative, or how to get a job or how to make a living out of it.
I worked in a secondary school in Peckham for seven years. I loved it when I first joined. I was assistant manager of the student referral unit. So there were 15 and 16 year olds that had trouble in mainstream education and this is like their last chance before they get excluded. It was so much fun and the kids were great characters. At the beginning they hated me because I was new and and I was trying to tell them what to do, but then by the end we had such a good relationship. I never wanted to get a teaching qualification though. I wanted to specialise in special educational needs and you couldn't, you have to specialise in a subject. They did let me teach in the end, I wasn't a qualified teacher but I taught English GCSE. I got to do all of the things that I enjoy doing so I never bothered to get the qualification. I sort of wish I had now.
The school was changing and the people who I liked left, the headteacher changed and she was horrible - she didn't understand the kids or care about them. The school turned into a mess. In the summer I got a job working for a restaurant, they were going round to different festivals and the last one was the Isle of Wight festival. Missy Elliot was playing and I really wanted to see her but it was at the start of term time. I couldn’t ask for the time off, so I gave up my job to see Missy Elliot. It was worth it.
So I came back from the Isle of Wight and I got a job at a Russian fashion house in West London. I was the sample room assistant. I had to organise the place basically. I spent a lot of time organising buttons. I quite enjoyed it because working at the school was really emotionally draining. I saw those kids all day and I felt like they were being failed and there wasn’t much I could do about it. So to go from that to organising buttons was quite lovely. I started working there in September time. At the beginning of the new year my friend and I had a thought, what if we had our own brands? Our friend had just moved to Holden’s Arcade in Peckham and you could rent small units there for quite cheap. So we thought we’d see if they had any. The next day we had a viewing to go see the unit, and we took it. Then I realised, well now I have to learn how to make clothes!
So we set up a studio sort of inside this shop, which was for the public to see. And we set a launch date for in 3 months time. I decided I wanted to learn how to make shirts, which is one of the hardest garments you can make. My friend was making tracksuits. And we were doing this in front of everyone! It was really stressful. I don’t think it was stupid, but it was kind of a backwards way to do things. I think it went quite well though. I not only learnt how to make patterns and shirts but I learnt how to grade it so I could make all different sizes. We made t-shirts as well and we had a launch and an after party at a bar down the road. After a few months my friend and I decided that working together wasn’t really for us, but she’s still doing her tracksuits and I’m doing my thing and we’re still friends. She moved out and some other friends moved in and we decorated and made it our shop and studio. I was working with different artists and designing print collections, making jackets and trousers.
Two years ago I decided that my next collection would be made using recycled materials and natural materials, I wanted it to be as sustainable as possible. I was looking at recycled nylons and other kinds of materials. When the first lockdown came around, I kind of felt like this is our time to stop. This is our time to give nature a chance and just be a bit more conscious of our impact. I wanted to think about every single thing that I was using to make clothes. I had wanted to try natural dyeing for a while, but I didn’t really have the time alongside making all my other stuff. But when lockdown came around, I had the time. So I got a couple of books (I’d recommend Jenny Dean’s) and I started making copper water and iron water, and I’d go to the park and find pinecones and things, I’d collect onion skins, everything. Natural dyeing is quite daunting at first. You need a lot of stuff, and there’s a lot of different processes to go through. But once I did it, I was like “wow, this is amazing.” You can create something amazing from things you might usually throw away. Just watching my onion skins build up in my kitchen is a really exciting process for me now.
I've really wanted to make a quilt for a long time, so I've kind of started to experiment with different patches using the fabric that I've been dyeing. Each time I dye something, I keep a little bit for the quilt.
At the time of writing this, I am currently finishing my new collection 'Nine'. Nine is a product of the pandemic. It was born out of my frustration of hearing that Boris was sending people back to work, after it was reported that Black and brown people were 4 times likely to die from the virus but nothing was being done about it. I started to look back at the 70's Black liberation movement and activism in the UK which gave me hope that grassroots activism can lead to change. I thought about my impact as a designer and decided that I wanted to use second hand materials and the natural dyeing process to give new life to existing and unwanted clothes. The number 9 in numerology means service to humanity and leading by positive example which is how I what I would like my brand to represent.
Sammy Russell
T E N S Studio