Trims in Negative Space at Christopher Kane

Christopher Kane, AW13, London.

We often think of trims and braids as something that goes on the outside of garments. We run trims around edges, sew them on top of seams and add them onto finished garments. There’s no reason though why we can’t make space for trims within the panelling of garments, taking advantage of windows of negative space. There was a nice detail in the Christopher Kane show for Autumn-Winter 2013 that serves as perfect inspiration for some new ways to approach trim details.

From looking at the garments from the Christopher Kane collection it appears that a form of looped braid has been used and stitched to either side of the fabric, so that the loop ends meet in the middle. The garments would need to be engineered to do this at the pattern stage, with areas of negative space made to accommodate the size of the trim.

For example a trim similar in structure to this looped button trim could have been used:

Of course this is in no way to encourage you to try to replicate the Christopher Kane collection and there are a variety of other trims that could be used to create interesting effects in your own designs:

It appears that some of the ornate fabrics that are used in the collection are a form of machine embroidery, so possibly the edge trim and the machine embroidery were both engineered specifically for the collection. With this in mind it is interesting to note how similar shapes and motifs are used both in the edge trim, and in the larger embroidered fabric pieces helping to pull the collection together. Some of the embroidery detailing has also been recreated as accessories for the collection.