A Sewing Room Tour With Melissa Faux

We chat to surface and printwear deisgner, Melissa about her journey to creating her own business.

When I was around the age of five, my mum used to grow a lot of lavender and dry it out and I remember her teaching me how to make lavender bags. I used to make loads of these little bags from scraps of fabrics and try to sell them on our front lawn – unfortunately for me we lived in quite a remote area, so no one ever bought one!

I wasn’t actually introduced to the world of textile design until I started university. I left college with every intention of becoming a pattern cutter for womenswear – until I went to uni, I didn’t even realise that surface and textile design even existed! So, it wasn’t until about five years ago that I actually started looking into textile design.

Amazing would be the one word I would use to sum up exhibiting my work at Graduate Fashion Week and New Designers. It was a lot of hard work in the build up to it, not just through your own personal projects but it was classed as being an extra curricular part of the course. So, all of the fund raising, stand layout and organisation we had to source and fund ourselves. Overall it created a real sense of achievement and it was so rewarding to talk about our work to industry professionals.

Starting my own business has been an organic process. It started with me designing a few prints and posting them on Facebook and Instagram. With encouragement from some friends, it then gradually developed into making products. The greatest rewards have to be the amount of people who comment on and enjoy my work – which is what fuels me to do more!

For the moment my creative workspace is actually my shed. When I moved back in to my parent’s home after university, I was lucky enough that my mum let me share her floristry shed which I use as my studio – it’s a fancy shed though, nonetheless – with central heating and a bathroom! My corner is very white, and I have everything set up around me so that I am in close proximity to fabrics, magazines, paint and an iron – it’s more of a creative nest as I like it all to surround me. It looks out over our garden and fields, so it’s a very inspirational environment to work in.

As my mood varies, so does my choice in fabric to work with. While I was at university, I specialised in print for loungewear so I worked with a lot of silks and stretch fabrics. Now, I enjoy working with more robust fabrics. I often work with cotton and canvas as it creates a much cleaner finish, which is where my designs have lead. All of my work stems from hand expressionist hand drawings and mark makings made with ink and watercolour. A lot of my work is an expression of feeling or mood – I go where the paintbrush takes me!

I am developing the product range to hopefully include more home accessories. I would also like to develop the bespoke side of the business with wall coverings. I also made it my new years resolution to have my products stocked in more shops this year, giving myself the goal of 10 – watch this space!

Discover more of Melissa’s work at www.melissafaux.com and over on Instagram @melissafaux