Events & Exhibitions

First Class honours student Tori McLean will be showcasing her Circus Collection at Winchester School of Art's graduate degree show for Fashion & Textiles Design graduates.

Her collection of interior fabrics and wallpapers were inspired by the toy characters, animals and apparatus of A. Schoenhut’s Humpty Dumpty Circus held in the V&A Museum of Childhood's 

Launched in 1903, these engaging hand-painted toys, folk-art quality captures Tori's heart. She fell in love with their hand-carved imperfections and unselfconscious liveliness.  Ingeniously designed as a cross between building blocks and a balancing toy, their patented ball-jointed arms, legs and heads, combined with their slotted feet and hands, allowed the characters and animals to be posed, balanced and reconfigured in "10,001 astonishing combinations" to perform intriguing feats.

Tori's  Circus Collection captures these character's quirkiness and bold, lively fun in a contemporary way by taking a 20th century popular American toy and giving it a British, 21st century twist.

Note: With thanks to the V&A for access to their archive collection