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LIZ COLLINS
www.lizcollins.com
risd connection: BFA in Textiles, 1991 MFA in Textiles, 1999; Assistant Professor, Textiles
best known for: Liz Collins is an internationally recognized artist and design known for creating groundbreaking apparel, textiles and installations through her innovative use of machine knitting.
about her work: Ginia Bellafante, a fashion critic for The New York Times, wrote about one of Liz Collins’ runway collections: “Collins has built an identity as an inventive designer of knits, the kind that are conceived to look as if they were upside down, backward and put on one’s body with the intervention of a Pilates machine.” After launching several critically acclaimed apparel collections in New York between 2000 and 2004, Collins returned to RISD to teach in the Textiles Department. She quickly gained a reputation for energizing studios with her enthusiasm for experimental knit construction techniques and her unique perspective on the interplay between fabric construction and apparel design.
design evolution: The knitting techniques that make Collins’ garments so memorable are the result of a lot of investigation and commitment to her practice. A few years after earning her BFA from RISD, she sensed something was missing: “I didn’t have a vision as an apparel designer,” she explains; so she returned to RISD for graduate study with a mission “to integrate textiles and apparel.” Through experimentation, she developed her signature “knit-grafting” technique Ð a way of using suture-like stitches to fuse a layer of fabric to a knit piece during its construction. She also discovered that creating apparel concurrently with knitting the fabric from which it’s made results in exquisite garments. Launching her first collection fresh out of grad school, she was immediately heralded as ‘one to watch’ by W, Women’s Wear Daily, Paper, Marie Claire, Jane and Interview, and Seventeen Magazine called her “a knitting goddess.” From her perspective, however, she hadn’t even “scratched the surface of knitting technology.” Her work today in RISD’s studios and on her own projects is fueled by a seemingly limitless curiosity about the potential for manipulating fibers.
r+d: Constantly on the lookout for new knitting applications and sources of inspiration, Collins keeps up an active schedule of research, practice and exhibitions. A recent sabbatical allowed her to travel to Lima, Peru, where she worked alongside knitters at the Marga factory to learn about large-scale manufacturing techniques. Pieces that emerged from that residency were included in the spring 2008 collection by Gary Graham, one of several designers with whom she collaborates. For Knitting Nation, a recurring installation exploring collective production, Collins has commanded volunteer armies of knitters at public art events in New York and Providence. A spirit of investigation also infuses her teaching in the relatively small Textiles department, where she values the opportunity to work closely with students throughout their BFA and/or MFA years. In recent studios, students have reimagined the popular Donna Karan New York “cozy,” and worked with their counterparts in Apparel Design to create mini-collections from fine Italian fabrics and yarns provided by the Italian Trade Commission.
selected exhibitions
Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting, Museum of Arts and Design, NYC, 2007
KNITTING NATION PHASE 3, RISD, 2006
KNITTING NATION PHASE 2 (solo show), Felissimo Design House, NYC, 2006
SAFE: Design Lab (solo show), Knoxville [TN] Museum of Art, 2005
Fall Vernissage, Dinaburg Fine Arts, NYC, 2005
Woven, Gallery W52nd, NYC
KNITTING NATION: Knitting During Wartime, The Muster, Governors Island, NYC, 2005
Liz Collins collection runway presentations, Fashion Week, NYC, Fall 2000-Spring 2004
selected awards + honors
United States Artists Target Fellowship in Crafts and Traditional Arts, 2006
RISD Professional Development Grant, 2006
Invitational Designer Workshop: SAGA Furs of Scandinavia, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2003
Council of Fashion Designers of America, elected to membership, 2002
Slater Center for Design Innovation grant, 2001
Rhode Island State Council of the Arts Artist Fellowship, 2000
GenArt Styles Design Vision Award, 2000
education
MFA, BFA, Rhode Island School of Design
Technical Training Course, Stoll, Germany
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