TADO collaboration

Time flies. This time last year, I was finishing off my Diploma in Creative Pattern Cutting.

I really enjoyed the final major project, I managed to secure myself a collaboration with the world famous illustrators TADO. I met Mike and Katie at a Sheffield party and told them about the course and my interests. The next day, I doodled a few outfits and sheepishly emailed them with a proposal about a potential collaboration… a few days later, I got an email saying they were extremely interested and designed a repeat print for me. Lesson learnt - you don't ask, you don't get!

Sketch and proposal I sent to TADO

TADO have worked for some big brands such as Gola, MTV and Vodafone. I was so excited about working with them, we emailed back and forth with garment ideas and prints ideas for a few weeks before finally settling on a final print and style for the collection. 

The concept of the project was heavily inspired by one of our tutors, a bespoke tailor who worked on Saville Row, Karl Matthews. He was infectious with his talks and I wanted to combine the playfulness of TADO with the accuracy and precision used in tailoring. It just seemed like a waste not to utilise his skills during my short time at the college. 

I ended up making three outfits from the line up. Standard blood, sweat and tears went into the making process. I was really happy with the end result, I mixed the TADO print with gingham fabric, added a few studs and got a couple of t-shirts printed up to finish off the collection.

There was a fashion show with the college but the images didn't turn out very well so here I am taking selfies. I should organise a photoshoot for these outfits...

Maria Black Jewellery

I came across Maria Black Jewellery when I started work at Berthram's. It is one of the brands we represent in the UK. Maria shares her time between her home town, Copenhagen and London. She's an award winning designer with an amazing future ahead of her. Within the past year, she's collaborated with Danish designer, Anne Sofie Madsen, she's breaking through the UK market, selling in amazing stores such as Harvey Nichols, Wild Swans and Wolf and Badger and this month, she's opened a flagship store in Copenhagen.

For me, it was love at first sight. I love the collections. My favourite part of work is selecting pieces to send out to press and stylists. Alongside, I create my own ring combinations for fun! The beauty of Maria's rings is that you can pile them on, mix and match between collections and create different looks depending on the occasion or style.

Here are a few of my favourite pictures of me and Maria Black Jewellery!

Pictures by Polina and me

Graduate Fashion Week

I can’t believe it’s Graduate Fashion Week already. I remember when I was a tired-eyed, caffeine fuelled, sleep deprived student frantically sewing, fitting and styling my final major project ready for my debut in Earl’s Court. It’s hard to believe that there’s been 4 lots of graduates since I was there… 4 years since I’ve graduated from my Bachelors Degree in Fashion Design from Manchester School of Art.

I loved my final year project, design and create 6 outfits from scratch. I specialised in young woven womenswear (original, I know) I based my collection around a roll of fabric I found in a small store in Sheffield. It was a large sequinned, dip-dyed fabric – I loved the colours, midnight blue with a touch of purples. I wanted to create a collection that was fun for women to wear. 

Bright Whites

This summer, I'd love to try out the 'all-white' outfit. The only thing stopping me is the fact that I'm super messy and I live in London. The underground and trains is covered in dirt and dust. My whites will never stay brilliant. But hey, I'm an occasional victim to new trends.

I work at a fashion agency called Berthram's and I've ordered a white dress from one of the brands, Anne Sofie Madsen, but it probably won't arrive until the end of summer. In the mean time, if I had all the money in the world, I'd buy a SS13 Alexander Wang dress but because I'm broke, I'd probably opt for a nameless labelled jumpsuit from eBay. Need to add Daz to my shopping basket after those lazy sunny days in the park.