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Delve into the fashion and textiles industry and you can unearth jobs we as consumers might not have even realised existed. Paul Luke is a textiles communicator who has worked with brands such as Topman, H&M and more recently became a part time lecturer at Leeds College of Art. But behind the fancy title, what does a fashion communicator actually do? It seems that even Mr Luke has a hard time explaining it.
“It is a difficult question to answer. I combine fashion, graphics, visual communication and textiles all in one.” He explains that: “ over the last few years there has been a merge between fashion, music and lifestyle as we know it, flying from one discipline to another. That’s where I have been born out of. It is a combination of these disciplines, branding, packaging, swing tags, that is known as fashion communication. ”
Making the leap from studying himself at Leeds College of Art into fashion wasn’t instant: “I started at Sony Music as a graphic designer. I was on a lot of photo shoots with famous musicians. Whilst I was there I got into styling. I had my first fashion illustration printed in a local paper and within two years I was working for H&M as their illustrator, Topman as their top merchandiser. Everything escalated from there.”
Showing his modest nature, Luke jokes that his biggest achievement is managing to get out of bed on a rainy Yorkshire morning. However, his CV would state otherwise. “There are many things that I am proud of in my career. I think one of them would be when I got my first real piece of work published. I created a fashion illustration for a local paper. I got paid £50 for it; I was absolutely over the moon for the coverage.”
Coming a long way since then, his designs have been seen on the front of supermodels, when he designed a t-shirt that Kate Moss wore. His work can also be seen in stores across the country, but after his commercial success Luke still finds it weird seeing his work on the high street or in the pages of a glossy magazine: “Seeing one of my designs in a shop or a magazine is surreal. I think wow that is something I have done; I have been part of that. I want everybody to know I have done it and to go that’s me. But no one will ever know and nobody really cares anyway.”
A successful career doesn’t come without its knock backs. Luke describes the lessons he has learnt along the way. “I have been ripped off a few times. I can remember doing lots of work for a club in London. I produced all their styling, their products and branding, everything under this fashion communication umbrella. Then they went bankrupt and didn’t pay me a penny.” With a frustrated look in his eye, Luke adds: “I had to explain to my girlfriend that we weren’t getting paid.”
Not all of Luke’s learning curves have been financial, “I have learnt to be self sufficient within time, respecting time a lot more and not dwelling too much on the luxury of it. I don’t think creativity can withstand a large amount of time. If I have a long time I might doubt myself, try to change it. If I only have till Friday, bam I can get it done.”
Luke is currently working with H&M on their spring/summer campaign, which even he admits is weird to think about at this time of year. “I am doing their visual branding, so I am looking at visual representation that represents their theme. They have given me words to base an illustration on.”
Not just working within the fashion field he is also working with Leeds Train Station and continues to work with Leeds College of Art. “I am working on a poetry project for the train station, but that is struggling with funding at the moment. And of course I am teaching here (Leeds College of Art). In the future I would like to carry on with this kind of thing. It is like a creative circle, I pass on knowledge then they can go off and do it even better in your own way. “
Although it is clear he loves his job, Luke doesn’t think that he will be illustrating forever, “I will always show my creativity in one way or another but I don’t think I will spend my whole life illustrating for fashion. I don’t know maybe I will write a book about all this one day. I have enough stories.”
