Ricarda Knit Design – Jurgen Lehl

When Ricarda first came to London in 1989 to study design, the tutor told her to “get rid of her smalltown, square, unsophisticated way of German thinking“ so she was given permission to explore her crazy ideas.

Ricarda always said: „I make fashion that you want to live in, which means you put on my clothes and never want to take them off again, because wearing them feels so cosy.“

Ricarda developed hand twisted, varicoloured yarns which she often had manufactured in Italy. Through creative explorations, she blended alpaca wool with silk and cashmere; cotton with silk; cotton with the finest metal threads; wool with cotton; and even used yak-cashmere, raccoon, and opossum-wool.

She also developed innovative knitting techniques such as knitting across both needle beds which creates a separation between front and back. The build-up on the surface of the fabric gives a raised, textured effect, resulting in a very complex and extremely specialised material.

Ricarda even used yarns made from paper. PAPER-YARN! Shifu, or paper yarn, was made into clothes and worn in Japan about 1000 years ago.

The robust, upcycled, paper-yarn is spun (twisted) from paper cut into strips or torn as raw material. Japanese paper yarn is made with washi paper cut into long narrow ribbon – like translucent paper, which can be washed. Traditionally, shifu was woven to make clothes. As far as we know, Ricarda is the only person to have knitted with shifu yarn.