Since founding Atelier Bâba in 2014, friends Melissa Thompson and Gabriella Massey have continued to explore and expand their knowledge of artisanal techniques, working independently outside of dominant fashion schedules to create pieces that are made to be treasured for life. Drawing from a range of influences spanning tailoring, natural dying processes and intricate hand-finished details, the duo’s garments, shoes, and accessories evince their dedication to traditional craft techniques and time-honed processes.

Approaching the label as an ongoing research project, the duo build on their existing archive of references and historical patterns to create a natural progression and sense of continuity across their work. Hostem has worked with the multi-faceted label since its inception, hosting artist in residencies and installations, offering opportunities to share the wider context from which the duo draw their inspiration.

We spoke with Atelier Bâba about the craft processes and techniques at the core of their practice, alongside a visual diary that offers an intimate glimpse of their creative process and rich library of shared references.

Where do you source your inspiration and what references inform your work?

A huge diverse collective body of ideas, swatches, fragments and drawings exists between us; imagery, textiles, poems, songs – from books, magazines, and museums that we have shared throughout the 13 years of our friendship, since our first meeting at St Martins. In London, The Brunei Gallery at SOAS, the library at the V&A and the National Portrait gallery are always very inspiring and restorative.

Historical clothing, both men’s and women’s, from every time and place, has always inspired us, in particular the shaping and various fabric techniques designed to compliment and enhance the female form, as well as corsetry, undergarments and the often complex and beautiful interior constructions – details that are no longer seen in contemporary production. I suppose there is always a romance to what we do, a femininity and all that can entail, that we embrace and celebrate.

How do you translate your references into garments, shoes, and accessories?

Our design process develops through conversation, sketching, draping, making, cutting up and re-working etc. We love to go back over old patterns and amend and combine and introduce new details, finishings, colours, and techniques. The simplest or smallest of adjustments can radically alter the final piece. We want our clothes to feel part of an ever-evolving and considered sustainable wardrobe that will be treasured, enjoyed, and kept forever, so this idea of re-working favourite styles really appeals to us. For example, producing the same jumper in multiple weights and colours, or a dress in a patchwork of block-printed Indian cottons as well as heavy over-dyed hand-woven black smocked silk, matched from a swatch from the 1930s.

We try to combine references in a way that feels fresh and slightly subverts the original intention or identity, to create a design that we are very excited to see realised and long to wear. As we don’t work seasonally, we are liberated from the confines and fast pace of collection turnover and production, so we have more time to dedicate to the creative process of producing personal and unique hand-crafted pieces, where each work encapsulates this intimacy, having been hand-finished, dyed, treated or polished by us.

Various natural dying techniques have always been central to your practice. How has your approach to the dying process evolved over time?

Both garment and yarn dyeing have always appealed to us and yield radically different results. Depending on the piece or style, we use a variety of natural dyes, sometimes in combination, and always by hand. Over the years, through much trial and error, we have created various dying recipes that we apply to hand-woven cotton, linens, silks and leather, that take inspiration from ancient Indian, African and Japanese techniques.

Over time, I suppose we have become more adventurous and keen to explore dying processes as much as possible. When we began, we worked only with natural indigo and woad, then progressed to turmeric, madder, onion skins, nut shells, and much more, documenting the varying intensity and tone of colour when applied to different materials.

We sourced vegetable tanned leather of differing weights and textures to test its reaction to the vat, as well as then using these dyes and pigments as a base for the polishes we started to create ourselves. We also looked into treating the fabrics prior to dyeing in some way, for example with stitching, pleats and smocking or the layering of colours, in order to really convey and experiment with the processes involved.

Where do you source your textiles and materials?

We have a wonderful relationship with the Cloth House in Soho, who we often buy from when sourcing in London, but mostly our fabrics come from Bangladesh, India and Japan. We also like to work with vintage textiles and dead-stock, which we find quite accidentally at markets or through various dealers we’ve bought from over the years.

During trips to Moroccan fondouks, we often come across weavers who we buy from also, to add to the cupboards full of textiles, off-cuts and block prints in our studio that we collect almost obsessively. A woman in Scotland gathers and spins yarn from sheep from farms that are local to her, which is then dyed and knitted into jumpers, bonnets and socks.

What tailoring and hand-finished techniques are recurrent in your work?

We like to personally hand finish all our garments, including hemming, buttonholes, and any decorative details or intentional ‘repair’. The footwear comes to us in its raw veg tanned state, from our shoemaker in London who we have worked with since our inception, on to which we paint layers and layers of pigment, often in various colour combinations, and then hand polish and buff with a natural wax.

We are also lucky enough to work with incredible artisans in Morocco and Bangladesh who weave, dye, and sew our textiles and garments by hand, allowing us to harness the traditional skills of these amazing expert communities that are so engrained within the history and culture.

In what ways do you incorporate traditional techniques?

We have enormous respect for the various traditional methods that we are inspired by, but also feel familiar enough with them to therefore apply in ways that we feel are innovative and exciting to us. We want to constantly learn new ways of working, which can only be achieved by experimentation and which is inherent in everything we do. In many ways it feels like we are just getting started, as there is so much more we want to do, and that we are so looking forward to creating together.

 

Click here to view our inventory of handcrafted pieces by Atelier Bâba.