In State of the Art, a column for Highsnobiety, Chris Erik Thomas untangles the crossover between fashion and art.

When Hermès comes calling (or, rather, emailing) about a project to hand-knit a pile of objects for a horse salon, the only logical choice is to drop everything and get to work. That’s how it went for British crochet artist Kate Jenkins, at least. 

“I was working on an exhibition I’m doing next month, and I got an email inviting me to design the opening windows for the flagship store. I was gobsmacked,” Jenkins tells Highsnobiety from her studio. Just behind her, a pile of knit sausages dangles from a hanger; one element of what’s set to become Kate’s Knitalian, an Italian restaurant and deli at London’s Air Contemporary Gallery, in which nearly every object is hand-knit.

Though the Hermès brief pushed the Knitalian opening back to late October, Jenkins doesn’t mind. Her fantastical, equine-equipped beauty parlor was a hit when it was unveiled this summer. Not only was it quintessentially Hermès, with its callback to the brand’s origins as a horse saddlemaker, but it helped introduce the artist — and her wry humor — to an entirely new audience.

“I really loved the challenge: How do you make it funny and Hermès without it being obvious,” she recalls. “I told all the guys at Hermès it was like I went into character, like I was method acting: what would I want if I’m a horse and go into a hair salon?” The result was knit Birkins stuffed with knit carrots, bottles of “Shampoony” and “Dark Horse hair dye.”

It was a step outside her comfort zone after years spent solely making food-related work, and it became a full-circle trot back to fashion, too. Jenkins may have built a career on her incredibly intricate, impossibly expansive crochet pieces, but she was first a freelance knitwear designer for everything from Marc Jacobs to Ralph Lauren.

The Hermès project bridged her worlds, but it also became an exercise in balancing relative creative freedom with a bit of corporate obfuscation; the display may be one of her most public-facing works yet, but there’s nary a mention of Jenkins at the store. 

“If you look at that window, you wouldn’t know it was me unless you followed me on Instagram or you read an article about it. Hermès never mentioned [me],” she says, adding with a laugh that she’s still “waiting for the stampede of people knocking at my door.” 

That knock may soon come once she finishes knitting her small mountain of Italian-inspired objects for October’s exhibition. Jenkins has plenty on her plate, but found time to chat about her career pivot, finding the right color yarn for Parmesan, and the next fashion brand she’d love to pick up her knitting needles for. 

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Kate Jenkins

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You started out in the fashion world. How’d you get into knitting? 

I decided to change careers because I felt that I’d done as much as I could in the fashion world and wanted a new challenge. Using the same techniques I’d put into a garment, but in a different format, excited me. I started creating art about 20 years ago; I was dipping my toe in the water, making the odd plate of food. A fried breakfast was the first thing I made, then fish and chips, and it escalated from there.

From the outside, Hermès feels like this really tightly controlled entity. How much creative control did you have?

I had a huge amount of creative control. The guys in Paris literally said “yes” or “no,” but once we worked out what the actual window was going to look like, I could put my stamp on it. 

From your perspective as an artist who’s worked with Hermès, why do you think it matters to incorporate actual human-made art into fashion brands?

They really appreciate and value craftsmanship. Look at Instagram last week with all the robots [at Vogue World]; Hermès wants people to see beautiful, real things made by a human being. Everything is considered. 

If you were to do another project with a brand, are there any fashion houses you’d specifically like to collaborate with?

I’d love to work with JW Anderson. I don’t want to say the obvious ones, but Chanel would be nice. I would like to do a whole makeup store or something like that. I did a little [Chanel] project a couple of years ago, Chaos 69, where I made a bottle of its perfume, some soaps and the bag. It got me thinking: Oh, this could be like a whole makeup stall… it would look amazing.

What’s the process behind creating an immersive work like Kate’s Knitalian? 

I have a compulsion to best myself every time I work on big installations. And the Italian restaurant has always been at the back of my mind. I started researching it, and there are so many things I could do. You’ve got the wine, the charcuterie, the cheeses, the salamis. But then there are the deli-counter ingredients and all the specialty pasta dishes.

I started researching how to make it look beautiful, and right now I’ve been buying cheeses so we've got the right Parmesan color. It’s good fun. I don’t eat meat, but for some reason, when I look at these salamis, I want to cuddle them. 

What is it about yarn that you connect with? Not in terms of the art you’re doing now, but even when you were working in fashion.

I really like making something out of a piece of string. It’s like magic: a couple of knots and a few stitches, and then you’ve made something. With the right bit of imagination and a piece of thread, you can make anything. 

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