Meet Your Maker

As a conceptual womenswear designer, I design to a narrative, challenging myself to be raw, organic and instinctive. My BA collection is drawn from detailed research into both sides of my family where I found generations of fine artists and industrial craftsmen. I built on the story of these juxtapositions to create a finely-held balance between elevated basics and wearable art. My six looks became The Potter. The Painter. The Sculptor. The Plasterer. The Leathersmith. The Statue. Each look, in garments and accessories, is a sum of the artist, their tools and their artistic process. I strive to celebrate the contrasts through the interplay between femininities and masculinities, complex silhouettes and simple cuts, heavy canvas and delicate silks, formal workwear and utility wear. As sustainability is key to my design ethic, my fabrics were carefully chosen to avoid waste. I repurposed dupion silk from my mother’s wedding dress and worked to the limitations of a single square metre of deadstock linen. Draped forms are created from one canvas pattern piece, selvedge to selvedge, with the volume achieved through subtraction cutting of shapes, maximising the material and showcasing raw edges.