City of Oxford College, Activate Learning, Fashion&Business Club members were joined by fashion designer Deborah Latouche for a Masterclass on creating designer inspired garments with a limited time frame.
Deborah Latouche is a fashion designer known for her luxury modest wear brand, SABIRAH. Deborah shared with the Club members her steps to launching her own brand, presenting her career journey from fashion design graduate to UK Corresponding Editor for Italian Elle. Club members were welcome to ask Deborah questions on her background before being grouped together for the day’s task.
Each group was provided with a mood board that featured the work of fashion designers that have strong brand identities, whose creations can be identified by key design elements, such as Vivienne Westwood and Oscar De La Renta. Deborah encouraged an open discussion around the importance of design pillars before tasking each group to create a garment inspired by these designers.
In order to experience what it can be like working on a sewing floor, and to encourage the Club members to spend more time creating the garment than sketching, Deborah set a deadline of just two hours until they had to present their creations to the group.
Club members commented that they enjoyed getting out of their sketch books and saw the value in making mistakes while creating the garment to understand what they liked and disliked.
Each group did a fantastic job in fashioning full outfits, some with accessories, in the limited time frame. They presented the inspiration they took from the designer and how they incorporated it into their own look. They then had the opportunity to have their mannequins photographed in the college’s photography studio.