Video tutorials about felted garments with Alena Selezneva
www.tvfelt.com
Alena Selezneva is a Leonardo da Vinci of felting art.
Felt from wool is the oldest known textile, dating back thousands of years. Traditional feltmaking is still practiced by nomadic peoples. Modern feltmaking have evolved from traditional craft to exquisite high fashion and extraordinary art pieces.
Alexander Pilin was one of pioneers of modern felting. He has learned a lot from “valenki” (felt boots) makers in Udmurtia. His collections were shown throughout the world; many feltmakers use the techniques he invented sometimes without even knowing his name.
Alena Selezneva studied from Alexander Pilin. She patiently went through his methods, his theories and classification of textile. The result was her own concept of felted garments, her technology and dozens of her collections. Hundreds of dresses, skirts, accessories, transformers… in Issey Miyake’s style.
In order to create her felt fashion world, Alena needed a new technology.
In regular felt, the fibers are tightly fixed with each other by the scales, these scales act as millions of small locks … Even a very light-weight felt is rigid and stiff like paper, it does not drape, but rather stands out. But for all these styles one needs a very flowy material. How to “teach” felt to drape, to flow?
Look at these dresses (made by Alena’s former student). Look how the fabric hangs from the body in many creases, how it follows the moving…
There were several discoveries on this way. The first one was made by felting classics: Katharina Thomas, Inge Bauer, May Hvistendahl, and others. They left small spots of fabric free in their nunofelts and used the draping capacities of silk fabric.
The second discovery was done by Alena Selezneva. She replaced some wool fibers with plant ones in a complex architecture of her felts and created new materials which drape like a heavy charmeuse silk.
She calls this technique “plaiting”.
Alena has hundreds, may be thousands of students, and many of them use this method.
Felting school is preparing two videos about the third method, “felt Lace”.
Alena developed this technique together with a fiber artist from Estonia, Svetlana Vronskaja.
What’s FeltLace? Cotton yarn is held together by a tiny amount of thin merino wool… Look at these dresses. It is another type of drape, more like cotton knitwear. The first video tutorial shows you the making of such dress and gives a lot of other ideas. The second one, “Felted geometry” shows different ways of surface design and the creation of such jacket from Alena’s youth collection.