Melanie Bowles

Melanie Bowles is a London based Textile designer and Senior Lecturer in Digital Textile design and Print at Chelsea College of Art and Design. Since graduating in 1986 from Manchester Polytechnic she has worked an in house textile designer for many high profile companies such as Zandra Rhodes, Nicole Farhi, French Connection and Jacob Schlaefer, Switzerland. In 1990 Bowles set up her own freelance company designing textiles and illustration for Interiors and Fashion. Her clients include Din Associates, Red or Dead, Marks & Spencers and the BBC. Over the last 10 years Bowles has been developing digital print techniques in conjunction with her computer based design. In 1996 she set up her on T Shirt label under her name. This collection developed the use of digital design along with digital transfer printing and sold in the UK and abroad.

Melanie Bowles has researched into the various digital ink jet print tecniques for textiles over the past 8 years. 'Sub-Tex' was a research project in which Bowles explored sublimation dyes through an ink jet printer onto a large range of polyesters. This project was in collaboration with Lysons International Ink manufactures. The initial research involved the sampling of over 50 different polyesters to see the effects of the print and identify which fabrics appropriate for the process. The final outcome was an extensive sample book documenting the tests, a resource that is available to textile students at Chelsea for the development of digital print. From this Bowles went onto design several fashion fabric collections, which she showed at Indigo, Paris and in New York. Since Sub-Tex Bowles has developed digital printing further by investigating reactive dyes with ink jet printing onto a wide range of natural made materials such as cottons, canvas, silks and velvets. Working in collaboration with Amanda Kelly produced a fashion fabric collection 'Pixel Couture', which was exhibited in Paris, New York, Como and Tokyo. This collection explored the mix of traditional print techniques and digital print techniques that give the Textile designer new opportunities to work with. Since becoming Senior Lecturer in Digital Textile Design in 2002 at Chelsea College of Art and Design Bowles has become increasingly interested in developing innovative teaching material for digital textiles using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. She is currently developing a publication with Laurence-King called 'Digital Textile Design'.