Jeni Allison is a knitwear brand based in Edinburgh, prioritising digital design and simulation technologies to make the product development process as accurate and sustainable as possible. The brand is a celebration of historic Scottish knitwear innovation with its first products, including garments and home accessories, launched during LDF.

For our exhibition, a collection of three blankets from the new Digital Drape series were presented. The blankets were created by draping fabric virtually in a 3D simulation programme before being rendered with different fabric physics applied to them. The renders were then converted into knittable bitmaps, and jacquard knitted in the Scottish Borders.

“During the lockdown period I missed visiting museums, and became really interested in organisations who were digitising their collections; allowing audiences to experience objects virtually in 3D. I loved the idea of draping fabrics over these and in the Green Drape Blanket you can see that the fabric is wrapped around a traditional doric column. The blankets playfully incorporate simulation and reality, but are also luxurious; knitted with mulesing-free lambswool.”

By embracing technology at the product development and production stages, Allison creates forward-thinking knitted products to treasure.