The Creature Show, looks at modern day soft toys and textile works with quirky but endearing personalities. The show includes work by eight makers whose hand-made designs are changing the face of soft toys and contemporary crafts. The show promotes new talent alongside works by some of the UK’s finest established textile makers and designers. International award winning Tait & Style, Multi UK award-winning Donna Wilson shows her knitted Creatures, emerging regional talent Sam Leonard lightly stuffed and delicately adorned Skini-Bears, with their printed fabric tummies and smiley button eyes, are designed to travel in jiffy bags. Accrington based Lucy Griffiths makes rag-doll figures on horseback, the lop-sided munkis and bunnies of Claire Montgomerie; Judy Dwyer’s Dangerous Dolls and Dogs; Sparrowkids and Pure Chemistry’s Londinium Dolls are also included @the Craft & Design Centre.

Sixe began painting graffitti around the late 80’s in Badalona (near Barcelona). His professional work has led him to experiment with different materials from iron sculptures to fashion design. I love the Spanish influence in these adorable sculptures (read the interview)

Although Barbies may seem a little outdated in the 21st Century, looking at the designs by Robert Best (recently featured on Project Runway a Principal Designer at Mattel where he has worked for Barbie Collectibles for ten years. Prior to Mattel, Robert worked in New York for such fashion luminaries as Isaac Mizrahi, Anne Klein and Donna Karan), the 2006 ‘Posh Life’ Barbies on location in London, and their stylishly English ensembles would be the envy of any fashionista.

Christie’s (London - 26 Sept 06) will be offering one of the most significant and complete collections of Barbie dolls ever to come onto the market. Comprising c. 4,000 dolls the sale spans the entire history of Barbie, her family, friends and fashion during the second half of the 20th-century up to and including the new millennium.

Born from the mind and hands of Nunzio Carbone and brand new to the trade, Marcella the new goddess of the fashion shows: a slender and willowy figure, a face, a look and soon a star. Fashion Doll Agency opened in 2003 Paris, is the first agency of fashion dolls in the world (see also Cotton Inc.)

Matt Sewell is one of the UK’s foremost graffiti-inspired artists. His canvases, walls and illustrations for clients such as Boxfresh, Playstation, Gravis, Puma and The Guardian have earned him an international reputation.

Magical Designer: Character designer and illustrator. Born 1977, in Osaka, Japan.

Cotton Inc’s own models with exclusive contracts and portfolios are hitting the fashion world by storm and gaining cult-like following in the fashion industry. They are regular features in Cotton Incorporated’s print advertising campaign for the fashion textile trade, appearing in publications such as Women’s Wear Daily, also known as WWD, and considered the fashion bible of the industry.

Cotton Characters were created by MTV’s animation department, the originators of Celebrity Deathmatch. The models’ 14-inch silicone bodies are molded around articulated steel frames that allow them to pose realistically—and look natural in their designer clothes.

Elana Mullaly, Australia

Her favourite artists are Yoshitomo Nara, Misery, Miss Van, Fafi, Rinzen

Since Misery street-art has been popular with the visitors, today I introduce the work of Caia Koopman. At UCSC in Santa Cruz, California, Caia earned her B.A. in art while also learning to skate pools, ramps and Derby park. Caia’s paintings tend to incorporate a connection between people and the environment, and often include birds, bugs, snakes and flowers. She loves beauty and color and tries to capture the wisdom and knowing and also a sense of mischief in her characters. Caia is inspired by color, dreams, nature, politics, and life.