My Job now..

I Now work for a fashion supplier called The Fielding Group, I started in December 2007 as a assistant designer for ladieswear and I am now a girls sleepwear designer. I really love designing girlswear as I can use bright colours, quirky graphics and the samples always look cute. I'm designing at the moment for M&S & BHS spring/Summer 11. So hopefully I will see my PJ designs in stores this time next year.

River Island Beach Collection

In summer 2007 River Island bought one of my prints to use on a beach collection to promote Graduate Fashion week 2007. The Collection included a bikini, flip flops & beach bag and they looked amazing. I managed to get a couple of each for free so I could keep a set forever. It felt so good to go into one of my favourite high street stores and say that's my design. The collection also got a lot of press and featured in the following magazines: Elle, Reveal, Look,

Sugar,

The Independent,

Viva,

Hello.

My First Ever Design Job

During Graduate fashion week I was offered an Interview with a kuwait fashion brand called Anotah, who saw my collection on the catwalk. I really didn't think I would get the Job of Assistant Designer for girlswear but 2 weeks later they offered it to me, then I had to make the difficult decision to move to Kuwait or stay at home and look for other Jobs, my theory was if I don't go and at least give it a try I would regret it.

So in July 2006 I moved out to Kuwait and started my first design Job, it was difficult at first being a blond girl I got a lot of unwanted attention but I got used to it and started to enjoy myself.

It is such a different way of life out there and their fashion is very different. They love bright colours and lots of bling, which made designing very exciting and for Kids clothing they don't have so many restrictions as the UK does. The one thing I had to remember was that in the middle east the girls have to cover up so if we designed a skirt and short sleeve top we would then have to design leggings and a long sleeve top to be worn underneath.

One of the things I really liked in Kuwait (apart from the sun shining every day) was the fabric souq's (market's) they had the most amazing fabrics and trims for sale and it was very inspirational before I left to come home after a year I took an empty suitcase and filled it with lots of fabrics and trims to take home, So I could make some lovely things.

These are my cushions and wall hangings that I made for myself from some beautiful fabric I bought at the fabric souq.

Final Collection - Egyptomania

My Final collection at University was one of my biggest achievements. I made a collection of 6 ladies outfits based on my inspiration of Egypt. All the Fabric I used started life as a plain white length and I dyed, screen printed, digital printed and embroidered everything to get the finished result, I even made necklaces, headbands & bracelets to complete the look.

I then got to show my collection on the catwalk at Graduate Fashion week in London where I won the Zandra Rhodes catwalk textiles award. This was very exciting especially being presented the award by Zandra Rhodes herself who I have always admired for her colourful textiles.

After the show one of my designs was featured on the cover of Drapers magazine which looked amazing as you can see to the right of this page and I was listed as one of the Top 15 young designers to look out for on the Vogue website... very exciting.

BA (Hons) Textiles for Fashion

In 2006 I Graduated from Northampton university with a 2:1 BA (Hons) in Textiles for Fashion. I loved this course and during my 3 years there I achieved a lot. here are a couple of my achievements while at Uni:

In year 2 I took part in a competition to design and make a collection of leather baby booties for Daisy Roots and came 3rd with my sweet flower babies collection, meaning I could do a few days work experience with them.

In my final year while working hard putting my final collection together I entered a competition to design a kids hat, scarf & gloves for the British Glove Association and to my amazement I came 1st with my Bunny hat, scarf & gloves.