starts to list what a typical day looks like as we nibble on a pre-dinner naan, and she is still going when we get to the post-prandial coffee.
“It can work several ways but often we are given an overall look for a season and then the designers chose yarns, textures and colour ways, produce a series of sketches and, with the yarn, tension and exact measurements, they go off to the pattern writers. It’s my job to manage the writers and checkers, who are all freelancers, to make sure they properly interpret the designers’ ideas and everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.” Lisa has developed the uncanny knack of reading a pattern and seeing it immediately in 3-D. And, like Bill Gates with a spread sheet, she can scan through pages of instructions and go straight to any mistake. Just as well because it is Lisa, officially entitled ‘Designer and Pattern Editor’, who has overall responsibility for making sure anything that goes out under the Rowan name is perfect.
“Once the in-house design team has made a decision about which garments will go in the
01
magazine and brochures, the designs are knitted up and there’s photo shoots to be organised (Lisa art directs and styles most of the brochure shoots). That involves casting and hiring models; finding locations with the right feel and booking them; briefing photographers and make-up artists; buying the clothes and accessories for the shoot; raiding the cache of shoes just behind my desk or the stock of jewellery and racks of garments we’ve collected in the yarn store at the mill.
“I’ll turn up at the shoot with tear sheets (the bits of inspiration torn from magazines or printed out from the internet) that capture a mood, a position or a great bit of lighting. I usually work with the same photographer and make-up artist so I know they can deliver.
“Another part of my job is keeping in contact with Rowan customers and answering any queries they may have about the patterns. I’m always knitting swatches to experiment with new yarns and stitches. And, of course, I work on designs.” She hasn’t even begun to mention the incidental
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jobs. When I joined her at her latest choice of location - The Ragged School Museum in London’s East End (it backs onto the Regent’s Canal, and was once home to the largest of Barnardo’s free schools for the poor) she was bending over a Victorian desk looking pretty professional with an iron. There’s one job, though, she clearly avoids - tidying her desk. Nominated several years running for having ‘The Messiest Desk’, this year she finally won the award outright and is totally unrepentant. It’s just another of those contrasts that she embodies – snuggly warm softness with sharp tailoring, a traditional sweater put with something surprising, a tip of a desk but a gimlet eye for pattern details – it all fits perfectly.
So, looking ahead, where do you want to be five years from now? There’s a smile and an instant response: “I know I’ll still be enjoying the work. But perhaps in a house with hot water and central heating.” Amen to that.
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01. Christmas in Glencoe. 02. Competing in British Military Fitness Major. 03. Ulrika - one of Lisa’s designs from Craftwork. follow Lisa on Facebook
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