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Lucy Growdon is one of the young fashion designers who had the opportunity to show their work at NYFW 2020.

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FASHION

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1st April 2020

Text Amelia Growdon

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Designers tend to take inspiration from all sorts of places such as nature, colours, the internet or even global events. But for one fashion designer, it was the cobbled streets of an old Italian city that got her creative juices flowing. “My main inspiration was the city of Milan,” says Growdon. “The circular details on it was inspired by the cobbled streets and roads, and the overall shape and fit was because I wanted it to contradict what Italian fashion traditionally is.”

 

Meet the Designer

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Salford University student, Lucy Growdon, has already had some of her work shown at New York and Milan Fashion Week 2019. Growdon has always had an interest in making things after her grandma gave her an old sewing machine when she was 10 years old. Her free time would consist of finding any scrap pieces of material she could find and then fashioning them into weird and wonderful creations. Her most useful creation was her handmade scrunchies which she even turned into a business on the school playground.

 

Her Creation

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Her final piece is made from a luscious black alpaca and sheep wool which gives it a soft yet rough texture. The quilting on the coat adds more texture and dimension to it and helps show the inspiration behind the garment. It’s oversized and is basically like a big blanket, it’s also really heavy. “It’s because of all the different elements, the wool itself is extremely heavy and then there’s the wadding and the lining,” says Growdon.

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The Coat

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“Our brief was to make the ‘perfect’ coat, we also had quite a few restrictions while working on this project,” says Growdon. She explains how they could only make the coat out of certain materials and colours. Growdon explains that “there was also an emphasis on trying to tie in certain elements we had seen while travelling to different cities with the university.” 

 

“I decided to use wool as my material because I knew straight away I wanted to make a big coat and so I wanted to give it a bit of a twist,” says Growdon. The wool gives the garment a unique shape and it emulates the oversized trend we are seeing in recent years. Growdon goes on to say that she chose to work with the colour black as it is a classic colour and it also fit the brief she was given.

 

Her final coat was a blend of two other coats she designed during the project. “It was the one that me and my lecturer both agreed on,” she says. These types of projects usually take designers months to plan and that’s even before they start making the final piece. “I think overall the coat itself took me a total of 72 hours to complete and that was over the course of a few weeks,” she says. Growdon had to give herself enough time in case she ran into any problems.

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“It was such a lovely feeling watching my coat come down the runway, especially after all the stress backstage,” says Growdon. But of course, it wouldn’t be a fashion show without any hiccups as she tells us her coat wasn’t put on the correct way. “It wasn’t the end of the world but because of the design it just looks different when you change how it’s supposed to be put on.”

 

After all her hard work it is clear to see it has paid off. “Overall, I think the whole show went really well, it has definitely helped me start to get my name out there as well.” Growdon explains to us how amazing this opportunity was and hopes there will be more shows to come in the future. Well, we for one will be keeping our eye out for her name, watch this space.

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Check her out on Instagram