Karen Nicol

First I will begin with a quote from an interview People Tree conducted with Karen, Nicol says,'I think Primark should be closed down by the government, when you bring up a generation who think it's easier and cheaper to buy a T-Shirt than to wash it'
Karen grew up making her own clothing from simple block patterns encouraged by her mother and was taught to embroider through inherited knowledge passed down by her mother.

Karen also describes working in a prodominately hand produced studio, everyone working together, creating, designing, "I love the whole human interaction that producing craft brings"- This is something that is reoccuring throughout my research, the interaction and connection to the craft and the interaction with others (other designers, makers, customers).

Karen Nicol is a leading and well established, innovative embroidery designer with clients such as; Chloe, Matthew Williamson,Givenchy, couture range for Chloe, and the list goes on.

In an interview with Selvedge magazine Karen is asked about the production competition from India and China, Karen states, "they can charge very low prices for beautiful embroidery. They don't have the design skills that suit the western market yet so I still design as much but a lot of the production is done overseas now, leaving us with the more complicated pieces at the 'couture' end of the market"- which suggests to me that hand embroideries be can done in industry this country but only available to high-end market. "When sampling you must always take into account the the cost of the embroidery. For production this can be multiplied by seven when it reaches the shop"- £10- £70- astonishing to Karen and to me.