Internationally recognised as a directional and conceptual designer, Shelly Fox is one of a rare breed of modern designers renowned for her innovative use of materials, manipulation of fabric and the development of unorthodox pattern cutting. The resulting designs re-define how clothing can be worn, constantly questioning conventions of practice. Her work explores unusual and arresting themes, on both technical and conceptual levels. Scorched felted wool and burnt cotton bandaging, the use of laser beams and sound waves that strike the cloth with ‘invisible heat’, negative imagery printed onto fabric, the use of Braille markings on boiled wool and Morse Code communication are all examples of past work.
A key part of Fox’s work involves her significant collaborations with practitioners from other disciplines including the London based multi-design collective Tomato, the fashion multimedia workshop led by Nick Knight SHOWstudio, acclaimed sound artist Scanner and more recently the Michael Clark Dance Company.
Developing a strong following of international admirers, her work has featured in many prestigious exhibitions at venues including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Crafts Council, Design Museum an Barbican Art Gallery, Modemuseum, Antwerp Landed 2001, FIT in New York, and British Council touring exhibitions traveling to Frankfurt, Bordeaux, Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, Prague, Copenhagen, Utrecht, Moscow, Berlin, Stockholm and Tokyo. Her recent collection Negative was shown at the Friday Late at the Victoria and Albert Museum in April 2005, accumulating in 4 shows in one evening, joint sponsored by Arts Council England and the V&A. Most recently her clothing designs featured in the exhibition Touch Me at the V&A and in the world premier of Random Dance Company’s latest production at Sadlers Wells, London.
Fox was awarded both the Jerwood Fashion Prize and The Peugeot Design Award for Textiles in 1999, the Crafts Council Development Award and is a Senior Research Fellow at Central St Martins College of Art and Design as well as the Stanley Picker Fellowship for Design 2005/6 here at the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, Kingston University.