This one-of-a-kind knitted dress has been created by London-based fashion designer and artist Bethany Williams for TOAST Renewed, using waste knit from the TOAST Circle programme alongside sample swatches from previous collections. Constructed through crochet patchwork with adjustable side panels and optional detached sleeves.

“The artwork for this dress is an original painting called Open Heart,” says Bethany. “It is about letting your heart open after a period of darkness and having the courage and faith to begin again without knowing the outcome. The image shows a woman beside a standing stone, surrounded by ancient stones and winter bracken. The deep red of the bracken became an important part of the artwork. Alice Morell Evans interpreted the painting into crochet patchwork. I wanted the shape of the dress to remain simple and allow the artwork and patchwork to speak for themselves. I draped the shape on the stand and developed the pattern from the drape. I was also looking at photographs of my great-grandmother and a dress from the 1920s that has been passed down to me and is extremely special to me. The past doesn't disappear. We carry traces of it forward, and sometimes, in the process of making something new, we discover that those traces are still giving us light.”

Wool, cotton, mohair, cashmere, alpaca, linen and polyamide. Crochet patchwork. Adjustable side panels. Optional detached sleeves. Layered hem. Kilt pin fastenings.

This style is part of TOAST Renewed By, our limited-edition collaboration series, which sees garments transformed by guest artists through traditional textile handcrafts, honouring both their past and their potential future.