MY FASHION DESIGNS...

For some years I worked as a designer for the British supply chain.  I don't do it now as there are so few jobs available.  Do I miss it?  Well, no- I still play around with designing and making/ altering/ re-vamping clothes for myself.  I made it to the level of senior designer and, given the state of the industry, was lucky to make it that far.  In the past twenty years, fashion manufacturing has almost completely relocated overseas- very stupidly, as all this means is that more British people get made redundant which equals more British people with less money to spend.  It's an ever decreasing circle. 

Here are some of my old Photoshop storyboard designs, which I found hovering around iCloud.  I think they're around fifteen years old.

Believe it or not, one of the key sources of inspiration for these themes was the flippy chiffon "I'll show you" dress that Princess Diana wore to the Serpentine art gallery.

Now, this is the dress I wish I'd designed!  But Christina Stambolian beat me to it.

I specialized in dresses and soft separates but have also worked designing tailoring, denim and printed T-shirts.  I worked with manufacturers in the UK (when there were more than there are now!) Eastern Europe and India.  I also worked with embroidery and embellishments.

Here's what an ex-boyfriend wrote about my work:- 

 "I always loved your designs & ideas... Pity the industry didn't with their persistence to consistently push out drab and boring High Street shite, as they still do... Their fucking loss!" 

I'm inclined to agree.  I nicknamed The London College of Fashion (where I studied) The London College of Copying, as that's what they encouraged you to do, rather than be original.  Mind you, perhaps they had their feet firmly on the ground and were only warning us about what the mass market industry was really about.  I like to think I'm an original and would probably have been better off working in couture, which is about just that.  I'm as surprised as anyone that I ended up working as a high street designer!

Here's an advert showing something I did whilst working for a company that supplied New Look.  My design's the girl in the middle. 

And here's a dress I designed whilst working for a company that supplied Wallis.

I designed a Copacabana print top for Wallis (similar in shape to the top of the above dress) that featured on Gok Wan's Clothes Roadshow.  Every week he'd road test a garment with about half a dozen women for style/ practicality/ comfort and my top won during "tops" week.

I also designed a Casablanca tile print dress for Bay Trading that featured on GMTV's "Beat The Stylist" ...and it beat the stylist!

I don't have a sketch or a photo of either to put on here, unfortunately.  But I will try and search for some images on the internet.  

Here's what I wrote, in response to my ex-boyfriend's comments:-

"You're right, it is their fucking loss. I still get told, "we want someone who is currently working full time in industry" whenever I do bother giving the time of day to it by applying for design jobs. It means that the same old people get recycled and no new ideas come forth. That's a pretty crappy way to run a business and it's no wonder that the industry is in such a mess."

I've said it before and I'll say it again- IT APPALLS ME HOW INTELLIGENT AND TALENTED PEOPLE GET WASTED IN THIS COUNTRY.

And no, I DON'T mean that they go out and get drunk all of the time- I'm aware of the double-entendre, thank you very much!