Li’s Forecast #8

Patterns in textile

Column

February 2026

is one of the world’s most beloved and influential forecasters. Each month, she writes a column for See All This titled The Future is Handmade, where she shares her views on a handmade future and spotlights unique handmade objects. Today: works of art you can wear – with a hint of do-it-yourself.

Column

February 2026

It is curious how a contour, a simple and direct line, can define and enclose a subject, while a sketch seems to represent something open to interpretation. A general plan that shows the essential features of something without revealing the details. That discrepancy gives definitive form to an open subject: the surface is fixed yet awaits interpretation, to be filled with a function, a dream, or an expectation.

Often, a sketch is the representation of a thought, a quickly noted memo to return to later as the starting point for a building or a painting. Sketches are cherished by collectors who wish to experience the process and hold on to the open-ended moment. After all, a sketch is never entirely precise, may differ from the final execution, and therefore possesses a lively dynamism.

This is certainly true of the challenging pattern sketches of the Italian Colomba Leddi. As an acclaimed textile, costume, and interior designer, she is fascinated by the history of clothing patterns as a way of mapping the body through the transition from the second to the third dimension. When she discovered the allure of watercolour painting, she understood that her drawings could challenge people to create garments together with her.

The first pattern of her boyfriend jacket is printed on canvas so that it can easily be cut out and assembled at home. ‘Do It Almost Yourself is Colomba’s proposal to the amateur: to sew a garment by perfectly following the deliberately imperfect contour, allowing variations and interpretations to emerge and enabling the design to be tailored to fit.’

Each work thus becomes different and uniquely itself; every maker influences the outcome. Yet for Colomba, rendering a paper pattern is also a moment to draw inspiring canvases featuring creations such as pink girls’ dresses or blue boys’ suits, a light green overcoat and a BIC-blue blazer—iconic garments that, sketched together, form a collection that holds her fashion in palpable tension.