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Hi Fashion One. Welcome to my atelier. So I suppose my love affair with designs started
out when we were children, my sister and I used to make this beautiful little dresses
for the fairies, and we'd leave them out on the rocks, and then we'd go back the next
day and they'd always be gone. So we've always imagined these beautiful little nature spirits
flying around in little mini couture and I suppose then I've always continued a love
affair with nature and I've always loved beautiful views and beautiful countryside, and I've
always been aware of how our environment affects us, and in the same way when I design I bring
those feelings for nature and those feelings for music and dance and life I suppose and
bring it back in to the design work. What keeps me inspired as a designer and what
gets me going is just always wanting to create something new, and it's my way I suppose of
sharing something and giving something beautiful into the world. I've always loved art and
I imagined that I would be more probably painting but then I got into design work and I always
look at my designs or the pieces I'm producing as works of art. I think of every element
of the designs in terms of the textiles. I like them to be pieces that you still want
to look at in 10 or 20 years time, pieces that you can hang on your wall, or pieces
that you would be proud to have sort of draped around the place.
I consider it really important to think about what goes into an end product, as much as
possible I would always try to source sustainable fair trade or eco friendly materials. I use
a lot of organic silks, organic cottons and hemp materials and hemp knits. I hate to throw
things away and I'm quite sentimental about things, so I sort of like to put something
special into different people's garments. Like, for example, the pearl necklace that
somebody gave me when I was in my early 20s, it broke and it had been sitting in a box
maybe going to be repaired one day and I was able to put it onto one of the dresses and
I think it made it's way into about three different people's dresses.
I got all these cashmere jumpers, all the beaded ones from the 1950s, and even though
they're all stained and damaged, when you cut out all the bead work and then applicate
it onto new pieces then it's reinvented I suppose and it gives it a new life, and I
think it's quite exciting to see something old made into something new.
So earlier on we were talking about the blossoms in one of the wedding dresses, in one of the
couture pieces, and what I was thinking about is the new life and the marriage, that it
would be the early days of romance and in the same way as springtime, so I love all
the blossoms that you see on the trees, and the cherry blossoms and so on, so I've kind
of brought the leaves and the blossoms through the dress, and I'm using organic silk as the
base. The vintage inspired pieces are still very
much on trend, you know with those movies The Great Gatsby and The Two Jacks, that roaring
20s and all the lovely decadents of the 1930s and 40s and glamour will still pour through
the catwalks and will still be in fashion over the next year or so. It's never going
to be not fashionable to have your figure showing in a really gentle and delicate way
and with clothes that have that kind of movement and dance and fun. Music and film are things
that will always influence us and the way we dress as well.
Thank you Fashion One for coming to my atelier.