Jonathan Saunders at the Edinburgh Fashion Festival

Jonathan Saunders is a rising star in the British fashion scene, having made a splash in 2004 with his Spring/Summer collection, and landing a cover of British Vogue with this stunning dress. Glasgow-born, Saunders began his work in textiles, perfecting the silkscreen printing process you’ll see over and over again in his designs. Only after sucessfully working as a textile consultant did Saunders fall into designing his own collections, and he is now carefully controlling the growth of his rising name in the fashion industry.

Saunders is wonderfully Scottish — this man takes his business seriously, and is certainly not a designer that just “creates” without consideration for production and buyers. In fact, Saunders relishes in the details of the production — he creates all of his own samples, and trained with a pattern-cutter after his MA to better understand how to create his pieces. When he talks about his career, you can hear the amount of consideration he’s put behind each move, and the ingenuity he’s applied to make a living. When he didn’t have enough money to produce his graduate collection at University, he got a job in a printing studio and snuck in at night to do his work. When he couldn’t afford rent in London, he slept in the broom cupboard at his work and snuck out in the morning before anyone saw him. And when Saunders realised that being a textile designer didn’t pay enough — patterns still only sell for £250 each, even to the big design houses — he re-invented himself as a textile consultant, working with Alexander McQueen and Pucci before launching his own collection. Here’s a quick snippet of Jonathan on working with McQueen (sorry about the quality!):

Saunders launch into his own label was hardly easy — he had to steal his own samples back from a dishonest backer who had lied about his collection’s success, then returned to London where he found support to show his collection at London Fashion Week. After that, his career exploded — Vogue featured his dress on their front cover, and orders started pouring in. He describes the next few months as the “darkest” of his career, as he was trying to construct 30 copies of meticulously-crafted dresses whilst researching and designing his new collection for the next season. He emerged from these months having learned his lesson — he now carefully controls the growth of his business, ensuring he can still guarantee the quality and perfection that he demands from himself.

While Saunders earlier collections were nearly tropical in their use of colour, he has stripped all colour away for Autumn/Winter 06 for a sleek, modern look. He described his process for researching this collection, beginning with a photograph of art collector Peggy Guggenheim in the glamorous Schiaparelli “Tear” dress (pictured left — co-designed with Dali, it looks like it is ripped all over), and branching into modernist and surrealist art. He even created a clear homage to this first inspiration, adding his own interpretation to the original Tear dress (pictured right).

The rest of the collection (more photos to follow soon) was a beautiful combination of stark shapes and colours printed on flowing, liquid fabric that floated around the model. The overall effect was unmistakably modern, yet surprisingly feminine — despite the bold prints on each dress, they never envelop or overpower the woman herself — the cut stays light and interesting enough to not weigh the piece down.

One of our favourite pieces was this stunning striped full-length gown – Saunders spoke of how Peggy Guggenheim blended the modern, surreal, and glamorous, and this piece also achieves all of those things. The print borders on being an optical illusion, but the overall effect is pure drama.

We came into the festival viewing Saunders as the token Scot at a Scottish festival, and less of a headliner, sandwiched between Westood and Williamson. After hearing him speak and seeing his work, however, we’re now a firm believer in this talented, thoughtful man. Saunders takes nothing for granted in his career, and refuses to accept that he’s already achieved success — “I don’t understand when people say that,” he said, “I’m just getting started.” With so much talent and sheer determination behind him, we can’t wait to see what Saunders will do next.