Gillian Pryce Lewis is a surface pattern and jacquard designer based in Cape Town, South Africa.
Gillian graduated from Loughborough College of Art and Design in the late 80’s with a BA [hons] in Textile Design specializing in Woven Textiles.
Following a brief stint of freelancing she left the UK to work in Cape Town as a weave designer for Svenmill Fabrics, weavers of home furnishing fabrics. Whilst at Svenmill, she developed a strong knowledge and experience of weaving for jacquard and dobby machines. During this period, she worked closely with many fabric wholesalers and retailers around the world developing custom woven collections.
After 15 years it was time for a change and so began a 3 year period of working remotely for a Hong Kong based weaving mill developing collections for home furnishings.
Since 2006, Gillian has worked part-time for Linen House South Africa developing custom designs for print, weave and embroidery, colouration, as well as coordinating the visual aspects of the brand such as packaging and the website.
During the last 3 years, Gillian has also worked as part of a UK/China team developing jacquard designs for a weaving manufacturer near Shanghai. These designs have been targeted at mainly the UK market as well as being launched at Heimtextil in 2019 and 2020. Gillian has been the technical weave specialist providing all the jacquard cards and dobby weaving information. In addition she has provided colour fabric simulations as part of the development process, saving an enormous amount of time and development cost to the manufacturer.
It’s not possible to work in such a highly specialized area without the correct software. Gillian uses the most up to date version of the EAT Designscope Company software for jacquard weaving and design. In addition she has been using Photoshop and Illustrator for many years to develop design artwork.
Gillian has over the years gained a wealth of experience and knowledge of weaving and loves to experiment with yarns and weave structures. She is used to working to tight deadlines and finding solutions to problems that arise in the manufacturing process.
Gillian has a range of surface pattern designs available through Patternbank but is equally happy to convert a clients own design to weave. Gillian’s designs are suitable for a wide range of applications such as fashion garments, curtaining, upholstery, wall-coverings, contract fabrics and sportswear. Her years of experience in the textile industry allows her to provide full technical information for weaving, including yarn content.
