Skitty Cat Designs; Dark, Delicious, And Delicately Made.
Skitty Cat is as skitty as the name suggests. Brand owner and skilled maker Jo Blair is more than a flighty feltress, constructing inspired hand made outfits and accessories from scratch with quality and uniqueness at their core. With a range including breath taking leather work and jaunty fascinators, Skitty Cat are bringing their millinery most macabre to the Spa Pavillion Theatre at this October.
Necromag set out to ask just what makes Skitty Cat leap from creepy to cute and what to expect from her Whitby Goth Weekend wares.
Necromag – What inspired the name?
Skitty Cat - If anything Skitty Cat is me. I like cats and I’m ditzy!
NM – How would you describe the Skitty Cat aesthetic?
SC- I don’t think that there is one thing because I am skitty, scatty and ditzy I jump about to lots of different things. I mean, you see my leather work which is very different to the fluorescent pink felt that I’ve been making today and my Cthullu felt.
If Cthulhu Was A Handbag...
NM – do you think you make different stuff depending on what your mood is?
SC – yeah, it’s entirely down to what kind of mood I’m in. If I’m in a dark kind of mood I’m making dark kinds of stuff. It’s not entirely a bad mood it’s just darker. It’s an awesome way of relieving stress. The kind of designs I come up with really depend on what kind of mood I’m in, and what kind of music I’m listening to. So if I’m listening to EBM; then I’m going to come up with something like the hefty EBM collars. If I’m really dark; the flayed flesh corsets. I like being that creepy, but then every now and then I’ll say, “hey that’s really cute” and go down that route.
NM – Currently, what range of products do you produce?
Cherry Red Hand Felted Merino Wool With Black Leather Straps.
SC – Currently I’ve got bags, small hats, cocktail hats, collars, cuffs; those are in the cyber range, more like the club wear end of things. I started off doing live role-play costumes and accessories. The corsets and other bits and bobs I do now are a refinement of the stuff that I used to do then because there’s actually quite a bit of cross over in design from live role play to club wear so I don’t have to tweak it all that much.
NM – What’s your favourite material to work in?
SC – I like working in leather. Felting is something I did several years ago. I went to Woolfest this year and saw a lot of felt artists and thought “I haven’t done that in a while and I enjoyed that”. I’ve refined my work a little since then.
NM – Do you have a unique approach to making things or a philosophy that goes into your work?
SC- Sometimes I will get out a sketchbook and twiddle.
The Flayed Flesh Corset
That’s nice but that’s not the norm, that’s not how I like to do things. I’ll watch films and go “that’s a nice costume” or I’ll read a book that has particularly evocative imagery, or I’ll be listening to a song that has evocative lyrics in it. There are some bag designs I’m looking at now that have been in my sketch book for ages. I’ve got to be able to wrap my head around what’s on the paper, can I make that in the real world in three dimensions?
To see more of Skitty Cats work visit their facebook page here.
