Motorbikes, textiles and Spanish shoes - the design favourites of Fibrecraft's Kim Shipton.

Your name: Kim Shipton

What you do: Textile art, design and production of home and fashion accessories using plant dyes, botanical eco-printing and traditional fibre crafting techniques. fibrecraft.com.au

Your latest project: Natural Base showroom and a three dimensional textile wall hanging naturalbase.com.au/eco-textile-wall-hangings/

Who are three people that inspire/excite you:

1) Claudy Jongstra
2) Tomomi Sayuda
3) Jaquie Hagan

What is your favourite…

Car/bike/plane/boat model: After my beloved Suzuki Gsxr750 I’m contemplating the next step. Perhaps a VICTORY Hammer S. I love the curve line to the cowl, the v-twin engine, the torque and the height features

Chair model: How can there be only one? In terms of ‘phases’ of admiration, the current phase is Arne Jacobsen’s Swan chair.

Residential space: Villa K by Cell Space Architects

Commercial space: Nowhere by Sajima resort (Yasutaka Yoshimura architects)

Decorative product: Naminarquina rugs

Functional product: Solar cells

Handmade good: Dolls from Aguas Calientes, Peru

Mass-produced good: Fair trade anything

meal: My partner’s eggs (from our own chooks), stir fried haloumi, chopped sage with comfrey, asparagus, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and mild peppers.

restaurant: Mr Wong, Sydney

drink: home-grown, brewed lemon verbena

bar: Green & Blacks Organic (chocolate bar)

item in your studio: My godmother’s sewing machine. (I spent many days in her dress making studio as a child hiding among the endless rows of buttons, fabrics, dresses and the drilling sound of her over locker).

piece of technology: My small quiver of camera’s; mainly Canons from different eras.

historical figure: Salvador Dali

fictional character: Leeloo (The fifth Element)

vice: Spanish shoe designs

virtue: Picking up elderly women who are hitch-hiking

What does the term ‘Design Hunter’ mean to you? A seeker of invention and expression within history, cultures and environments.