John Smedley Ltd
John Smedley is a fashion knitwear company founded in 1784 at Lea Bridge in the Derwent Valley, Derbyshire. They made quality underwear, an early style was the ‘Long John’, but as fashions changed they moved from underwear to outerwear. The company has been in continuous production for over 200 years at the Lea Mills site and it is housed in a unique collection of historic buildings that have built up on the site as the mills developed.
Brief
Jane and the teaching team have explored the archive and have chosen five ‘story threads’ for you to respond to as animators, graphic designers and illustrators. The five stories are:
• G Mallory’s underwear
• The Jay symbol
• Garment knitting and construction
• WW1
• The factory day
During WWI 144 workers from the John Smedley's warehouse went to war. Whilst away the factory sent the soldiers care packages and letters making sure that they where getting some of the things that they need. The packages contained John Smedley underwear and some food items. currently the soldiers are recognised in a roll of honour on the factory wall.
From this I wanted to create something that would take the roll of honour a step further and show each soldiers individual story and history.
The idea of my design is that each soldier gets their own package just as they did from John Smedley, and each package shows part of that soldiers jistory. within the design i have used two colours, i have used brown Kraft paper for the soldiers that came home to give it more of a parcel feel. Then I used red kraft paper for the soldiers that died at war. the red acts as a link to rememberence and it is a colour that is more assiciated with death and blood. It also shows a good contrast between the two groups of soldiers.
The aim for these is for them to be accessable for people to pick up and look at to create a more personal experience between the soldiers and their stories with the viewer of the work. Also by constant handling the packages will age and start to look more like they themselves have been to war accross the exhibition.
This project will be part of a lost stories exhibition at Cromford Mill, Derbyshire 14th March - 26th March.
"This exhibition is the result of a collaboration between Stage 2 students working in Visual Communication at the University of Derby and the Archive held by John Smedley of Lea Bridge. Students working in Illustration, Animation and Graphics bring alive the 'Lost Stories' of the John Smedley factory and the people that worked there. "
