An Alternative Sample Room | Elaine Yan Ling Ng / The Fabrick Lab

In a conventional textile sample room, customers are presented with flat textile swatches. But given that textiles are almost always applied to three-dimensional surfaces, ought a sample room not reflect that? In her installation for Knit!, British-Chinese material scientist Elaine Yan-Ling Ng offers an alternative form of sample display, one in where each textile is presented folded, pinched, draped or creased, thereby showing off the material possibilities of each individual knitted textile. Ng brought her knitted Razzle Dazzle textile swatches to life by mounting and laminating them onto materials such as aluminium, stainless steel, wire, PVC, and bamboo. Each swatch thereby becomes a mock-up of how the textile might look when applied to real-world objects.

Elaine Yan Ling Ng / The Fabrick Lab

Elaine Yan Ling Ng is the founder of The Fabrick Lab, which brings together textiles, electronics and biomimicry. A British-Chinese materialologist and TED fellow, she has worked with companies such as Nissan Design Europe and Nokia. Her awards include a GGEF Eco Innovator Award and a Design for Asia Gold Award, and her work has been exhibited at venues including the V&A in London, TextielMuseum, Tilburg, and Moleskine global galleries.