London’s markets are a fantastic forum for budding fashion designers, and a great way to support the talented and unique. Meet Tanya Vallally, says Kent de Pinto.
It has often been said that fashion has transformative powers, but Tanya Vallally will do you one better. Her clothes have the power to reunite. Shortly after arriving in Greenwich Market I meet Rachel, who was minding her own business on a weekend shopping trip when something extraordinary amidst the crowded stalls caught her eye. "I remember thinking, 'Oh my god what a gorgeous skirt!'", Rachel recalls. The booth whose wares were so entrancing turned out to belong to none other than her old primary school friend, Tanya Vallally. Spend a couple of minutes with this passionate designer and you'll realize these kind of warm surprises are her specialty.
Tanya won't be London's best-kept secret in new fashion for long. A weekend regular at Greenwich Market for a about a year now, she is finally starting to draw the customer base she deserves. Tanya is most famous for her skirts, simple in design yet imaginative and playful in everything else. "For me, it’s fifty percent colour, fifty percent texture. The more colour and texture is the best thing!" She says this as Rachel and I sip hot chocolate on the floor of her booth; a cool, urban tree house amidst the fraying backdrops of other market regulars.
Her clothes are demure yet striking, much like Tanya herself. Wide velvet belts of contrasting hues highlight swaths of muted, natural tones, which make up the body of her wrap-around skirts. Blues and pinks, greens and browns, her palette is bold but never over the top. She does have her favourite colour, but she won't say what. She doesn't like to dictate what people should be wearing. "Each person is an individual with different tastes. You should never rule out colour combinations just because they aren't your personal preference."
But good colour sense is not what makes a Tanya Vallally skirt. The divine, is, as always, in the details. Using organic materials such as wheat shafts and poppies, Tanya first creates a silk-screened print on a (hand-dyed) panel of satin. She then accents the panel by hand illustrating in ink, over the print. The final touch is hand embroidery, which takes the shape of either butterflies, or my personal favourite, birds, hovering near the belt of the skirt. The final result is a truly unique piece of clothing that plays like a scene from last summer's visit to the Lake District. In Tanya’s words: "Something that tells a story. An energy that moves with you."
Perhaps her inspiration from nature means she feels a particular responsibility in creating a sustainable product. Her delicate handmade purses, wallets, and cuffs are all pieces of leftover satin she has recycled from her skirts. "It's a very surprising, fun way to reinvent fabric. A piece of satin that won't look good on a skirt, can make a gorgeous lining for a handbag. I like to utilize everything." Her first pieces of clothing were t-shirts, and in her booth a few hang casually in various shades, a butterfly label on the front breast, bearing her name in cursive. These were her first designs, and she has learned much since then.
After a Foundation art course, Tanya took a degree at Chelsea in Pimlico where her final exhibition featured Roccoco patterns on Victorian fabrics and ceramics. "Mostly swirly birds and cats and polka dots, which was the centrepiece for 19th century design,” she explains. It served for a lot of inspiration for her current work, as did her apprenticeship with famed colourist and textile designer, Heti Gervis. "She gave me faith in my work and helped bridge the gap between Uni and being a designer/maker. She was the one who convinced me that having my own studio space was essential." Through help from the local business council she managed to acquire studio space in a converted Victorian factory in Kent. From there it takes Tanya about a day to make each skirt, and yes, she takes bespoke orders. "There is a certain Swiss efficiency to everything I do,” she says. “You want your customers to love their clothing as much as you do. It's not fair to give the customer something that could have been improved upon."
With all of the time and labour put into one garment, does it get hard watching people pass the stall by? "That's my new year’s resolution," she says, laughing. "Letting go of my work and realizing that not everyone is going to love it or treat it the way I do."
So what's a devoted skirt groupie supposed to wear on top? There is no stopping Tanya's exuberance when she talks about possibilities for the future. "Delicate fabrics with geometric designs, perhaps some Peter Pan collars, maybe blouses with floral embroidery on the pocket." She wants to expand further into natural fibres; tweeds, silks, and dare we say it, cashmere. Look for her to explore new colours and maybe rediscover some of those old Victorian patterns. Industrial meets classical. Piet Mondrian meets Beatrix Potter. London meets Tanya Vallally.
Tanya Vallally. Greenwich Market Sat – Sun 10:30am–5pm
Skirts £65, cuffs £5, bags £10, scarves £15, t-shirts £15
