“Chase your dreams, they can come true”
Janet Clare’s thoroughly inspirational talk on Wednesday May11th was the story of how she became a textile designer for Moda.
She confessed to always having had grandiose ideas, such as wanting to be a teacher on a cruise ship; to have a painting hung in the Royal Academy summer show (although she doesn’t paint!); or to design her own fabric etc. Her philosophy was to “throw your dreams ahead and walk towards them”.
Having achieved a degree in Textiles and Fashion, mainly knitting based, she embarked on a career as a freelance designer followed by a few years teaching at reception level. She had always enjoyed doodling and sketching and her desire to design her own fabrics motivated her to take the bold step of trying to approach fabric companies. She went through her stash and realised that the majority of her favourite fabrics were produced by Moda.
In 2012 she set about putting together beautifully presented, A3 sheets of sketches, colourways and samples which she sent by snail mail to America in the hopes that as these would have to be physically handled and looked at (presentation is everything) as opposed to yet another email which could be glanced at and discarded.
Nothing happened! She waited and waited. Then her husband pushed her to ‘follow up’ by trying to call Moda’s Design Director, Cheryl. This Janet did and, much to her surprise, Cheryl herself answered the phone! This call did indeed push Cheryl into having ‘another look’ at Janet’s work with the result that not only was Janet accepted as a fabric designer but Moda would also be happy to distribute Janet’s books as well.
So her association with Moda began. Once a textile designer for Moda, always a textile designer. Janet had her own ‘niche’ using her own colour palette of blues, greys and beiges (with the occasional extra colour) for her mainly seascape type designs. 15/20 ‘collections’ later she still is able to produce fresh designs that are ‘similar yet different’, to retain her style.
Once her designs for a new collection are sent to Moda they will either accept or reject the collection. If the collection is accepted, Moda send around 80 samples of Janet’s designs/colourways for her to reduce down to 35 possible final fabrics. Amusingly, this is apparently done very swiftly by lobbing each sample over either her right (yes) shoulder or her left (no) shoulder. This sounds great until she looks at the piles and realises most of the ‘yes’ are similar because they are really her personal preference. So she starts again! In other words this is a difficult procedure.
Once the final designs are selected samples are printed and sent, to go with the advertising, to the agents. Although Moda keep one yard of every fabric they have ever produced, only fabric that is ordered is printed and only fabric that is sold results in some commission to Janet! However it seems that Moda ‘the mothership’ look after their staff/designers very well. Janet is more than happy with the arrangement. She usually has to work to a deadline, but has complete freedom regarding the fabric. Right down to the font used for her name and the collection name on the fabric and indeed the colour ‘dots’, which she likes in the shape of little fishes.
It can take 12 – 18 months from original design to final production of a ‘collection’. Janet receives 5yds of all the fabrics in her final collection in a box from Japan (where all the fabrics are printed). Janet finds it hard to open that box to see the final results! Nervous times, will it be as she had envisaged?
This delightful, diminutive lady (despite the stacked trainers) glided through her story of achievement like a swan, with the rueful acknowledgement, that despite appearances, there is a huge amount of ‘paddling’ and energy going on below. Fanny Craddock had her ‘Johnny’. Janet has her ‘Tony’ and freely admits that he is the working machinery behind her, leaving her free to design. As Janet became more successful Tony became Janet’s full time business manager, including computer duties. (We all need a Tony)! She also has full time quilters to make up her designs.
Janet has to design at least one sample quilt for each collection. It is Tony who realises her sketch quilt designs, worked on graph paper, using the EQ8 computer programme which can rotate blocks etc. Janet can the ‘drop’ the colours into the programme to see the finished result. Tony has the added advantage of having a decent wingspan so he can hold up sample quilts for display on his own!
Janet gave us a most entertaining and enlightening morning. Not least I now have an understanding of why, when you run out of fabric and go back for more, you very often can no longer get it. It seems that once a collection is sold it is never printed again! So make sure you work out your requirements ladies when planning your next quilt!
Liz Steer
May 2022
