From crafted cobwebs to bandage dresses, Canadian knitwear designer Mark Fast is quickly making his name with his hi-tech yet witty knits

Photography by Clare Shilland

Mark Fast would like those who think that television rots the brain to reconsider. It was regular viewing of Canada’s long-running fashion-industry news show, Fashion File, hosted by Tim Blanks, that first showed the 12-year-old Fast a strange world, far removed from his home town in the industrial city of Winnipeg, Manitoba. “It was back when Galliano had just moved to Dior. I remember Betsey Johnson’s amazing shows; there was the buzz, the looks, the characters, playing dress-up… it was after seeing that that I started sketching.” 

Fast nods solemnly at the memory. He has a pleasant, open face and a voice so high and light that it sometimes loses the battle against the building work that thumps and drills outside the window of the Mayfair office where we’ve met. (His studio in Hackney Wick is out of bounds, as a 10-strong team is furiously at work on the production of his latest collection for London Fashion Week.)

He’s brought along his managing director Amanda May, too, and the strength of their working relationship soon becomes apparent. The pair met when Fast came into the boutique where May worked in Vancouver. The brief encounter inspired her to follow her dream of moving to London, and she bumped into Fast by chance when she got there. They became friends and started working together when Fast was still a fashion student. While his answers often fade into vagueness, May tends to finish up for him, adding useful and important fact and weight to his thoughts. It’s easy to see how these two combined have turned his new label into a fledgling international concern, now stocked in seven countries worldwide and, as of last January, a recipient of the British Fashion Council’s prestigious New Gen initiative. 

Though TV got him started, Fast says it was pitching up at Central Saint Martins in 2001 (he did his BA and MA in knitwear here) that put him on the right track. “People say that you don’t get taught at Saint Martins, that you’re on your own, but you become independent, sure of what your world is. On the fashion MA with Louise Wilson, I learned more in a day than in the last 10 years. She’s as good as people say and I think she appreciated my knitwear because she loves to see new things.”

She’s not the only one. London boutique Browns snapped up Fast’s MA collection. Erin Mullaney, the store’s buying director, is a staunch fan, supporting Fast not just with orders, but promoting him with events such as tonight’s Brown’s party, hosted in his honour. “Mark’s designs are just amazing. He’s developed an incredible technique for his cobweb knits that look so sexy and feel incredible on,” she says, of Fast’s designs that have, in the past, included delicate ladder-stitch panel dresses and knitted minidresses decorated with floor-length fringes made out of combed viscose.

The whiz knitter’s creations are certainly original. His bright, sinuous knit sheaths are great feats of engineering, fusing body-sculpting construction with intricate textural detailing – neither of which would be possible without a masterful understanding of his materials. And while Fast may only be in his third season, the 28 year old’s visionary knits have already netted him a Loewe consultancy gig (his designs are in this season’s collection) as well as a nomination for the 2009 Andam Award.

Fast is constantly experimenting with new stitches and elastomeric yarns (that’s stretchy to you and me). Lycra, he admits, is a pain, not least because it’s so hard to find in a range of colours. “My work may not look like it’s changing, but internally, when it comes to the stitches and the shapes, I’m always finding new things,” says Fast. Cue the knitted viscose beads that were hand-linked to form bandage-style body-con dresses, and the knitted evening gowns made with a velvet yarn in his autumn/winter 2009 collection. Or even the Swarovski crystals that he has encased in the fabric of the knits themselves for the spring/summer 2010 collection, which he unveils today. “It’s a very technical process, not least because
I don’t make patterns, I just count the numbers of stitches. There’s lots of experimenting and you never know how it’s going to turn out because the way these materials work can be unpredictable.”

So complex are his designs that Fast has had to employ a team of home knitters to manufacture his creations (thus far, no factory has been able to produce his knitted panels to a high enough standard). An ad placed on the Guild of Machine Knitters website produced a legion of little old ladies who sit in Devon, Scotland and even France, knitting up Fast’s sexy knits. 

Then there are the ideas and research that inform his collections – which are equally complex, resulting in sometimes trippy but always precise narratives. The idea for spring/summer 2009, for instance, was exotic birds from the Emerald City whose feathers have been stained by an oil spill. His BA collection imagined what would happen if Elizabethan houseflies were transported to the 21st century and electrocuted by a fly zapper. “I really need a story,” the designer explains. “It’s exciting for my imagination to craft these characters and their garments. It’s part of a need for me to dream. And I always stick to my research – if you don’t, you just go off on tangents.”

“He physically storyboards everything,” May adds, of the initial research process that feeds into Fast’s final creations. Apparently, his is an approach that takes the usual inspirational designer mood boards to a whole other level. So much so, says May, his storyboards have become the subject of the current Art on the Underground scheme, to tie in with London Fashion Week. 

As for the collection you’ll see today, Fast says he looked to both the silent cinema of the 1920s and the 2000 Oscar-winning film Erin Brockovich. “I watched Erin Brockovich recently and Julia Roberts’ attitude
was so fierce. She’s a very tough lady who has other things to worry about than clothes,” he says. “I’ve mixed in some of the textures of the clothes from 1920s films, so it’s cinematic but has the real-life personality
of someone like Brockovich.”

No one who’s seen his designs could be in any doubt of the type of strong, sexy, woman he idealises. He
sees the Fast female as the kind of woman who has a family and kids, but is effortless and daring, suggesting Carine Roitfeld as an example. Surprisingly, he’s not overly keen on the body-con tag that’s been attached to his dresses, though. “When knitwear is close to the body it provides structure around the shape, it’s about the silhouette and the nature of the yarn around her,” Fast says. “They’re not body conscious, they’re just
about the body.”

Having created an outfit for a non-standard model size subject for All Walks Beyond the Catwalk
(see front page), it would seem size matters to Fast.
Although the designer won’t be drawn on the rumours that he will be sending voluptuous models down his runway today, he does acknowledge that there has been a shift in thinking when it comes to embracing more diverse body ideals and his designs. “I’m keen that my clothes are by no means seen as limited to the pin thin.” 

After all the fuss and furore is over, what Fast is really looking forward to is a trip home to Canada, to relax with his family and enjoy the lakes of his home province, Manitoba. “I don’t really miss Canada, as long as I know
I can go there when I need to. Being there is like therapy.” And how does the creator of some of the sexiest dresses this side of decent relax? “Fishing. By the time
I get home it’ll be fall, so the fishing will be amazing.”

Alice Fisher, Style Correspondent, The Observer

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