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Vice Blog

MENTAL KNITTING

Craig Lawrence

says that being a knitwear designer is way more inventive than designing straightforward fashion because he doesn't need to depend on textiles from someone else–he can start at zero, build from there, and go mad. He's into "the spontaneity of his knitwear"–don't go all skeptical now, such a thing can exist–and that he often doesn't know where he's going to end up. Guess that's what happens when you knit with garbage bags.

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Vice:

Why knitting? Craig Lawrence:

There's so much more potential to be creative. You get to choose the yarn, then choose a technique and then decide on the design. So from the very start you're in control.

How did you start?

My gran taught me how to knit when I spent a bored and lonely holiday with her one year.

What's the most insane thing you've ever knitted?

A big yellow rubber glove chunky hand knit I took to Berlin for a

!WOWOW!

exhibition. It was the most ridiculous thing I could have thought to take on a plane and carry round Berlin.

Who are your fashion heroes? Gareth Pugh, Victor & Rolf, Sid Bryan, Katie Shillingford, Fred Bulter, Orla Savage.

What do you like to wear?

My favorite outfit is a pair of skinny Levi's with my giant-sized Miu Miu vest top – a vest that's a dress.

A dress, nice. What sort of universe or atmosphere are you trying to create with your knitwear designs?

Some kind of weird, dark, and cold cyberspace fairground place.

Sounds right.

This video is the stuff that's on sale for autumn/winter '09 - 10

This is Craig's completely insane graduate collection, a jumper from a dimension where plaid, DNA and ketamine-inspired fashion are one in the same.

While he was still in college, Craig knitted these designs for Gareth Pugh. As money was short, he made plastic bag knits as well as leather knits.

See Craig's latest film and collection here.