Anna Stoane is a Multidisciplinary Textiles Designer who recently graduated from Edinburgh College of Art. Anna’s graduate collection The Hidden Kingdom was inspired by ten species of fungi and their marvellous fruiting bodies. As part of her research for this collection, she visited the RBGE Herbarium to study and photograph a selection of fungi specimens.

Fungi and mushrooms have always fascinated Anna, and her explorations started by reading Roy Watling’s Fungi book. She was inspired by images of clouds of spores being dispersed, mushrooms and elf cups with raised and distorted grids and caged structures, clusters of puffballs, organic wood-like grains, patterns and textures, crinkled and shrivelled mushroom edges and folded gills.

What really excites Anna as a designer about fungi, is how their lines pleat, the way they create organic labyrinths, their subtle colour with pops of rich oranges, yellows and greens, their hard structures that sit in front of their soft, crinkled layers behind and their thousands of tiny spores that grow and gather in clusters.

Anna uses techniques and materials that stretch the boundaries of textile and fashion disciplines. Anna’s printed silk garments include pleated and smocked sections, voluminous ruffles and edges and handmade and hand-embroidered beading. She also uses plasma cut copper and wood hardware body adornments.

To see more of Anna’s work, visit her website (https://annastoane.wixsite.com/website),​ or her Instagram (@carterstoane_design).