High Street Display For Students' Designs
23 May 2012
Fashion Studies students Lucinda Gautrey and Charlotte Weatherby with their designs displayed in Canopy in Sadler Gate.
We are really excited to be working with the Fashion students at the University of Derby
”Louisa Hurdis, Buyer for Canopy.
Two University of Derby Fashion students are seeing their clothes designs in the windows of a high street store - even before they've finished their degree course.
Final year students from a wide range of subjects will stage free public displays of their work at the University's Markeaton Street and Britannia Mill sites, in Derby, from June 1 to 12, as part of the annual Degree Shows.
But clothes created by Fashion Studies students Lucinda Gautrey and Charlotte Weatherby are being exhibited in the windows of city-centre fashion store Canopy, in Derby's Sadler Gate, after they won a hard fought competition.
The Derby fashion store, which opened in 1993, chose Lucinda and Charlotte's designs from final year collections by University students.
Three outfits from both winners' collections will be on display in Canopy's windows until June 6, alongside the design idea boards that went into creating them.
A fourth outfit by each designer will stand in the store for customers to vote for their favourite, with the most popular netting the winner £150 in Canopy vouchers.
Lucinda, 20, originally of Churchdown, Gloucester, said: "My womenswear collection, The Spirit Line, was inspired by traditional Native Americans' dress and their attitudes to life. The clothes are aimed at women aged 35 and above, although friends my age have said they'd be happy to wear them."
Straight after finishing her Derby course Lucinda will be jetting off to Manhattan, New York, for a three month summer internship with company Friends with Benefits. She landed the job after an online interview.
Charlotte, 21, originally of Biddulph, Stoke-On-Trent, added: "My collection is called Forest Fibres. It's inspired by the textures of nature such as a top embroidered to look like leaf veins, and another plaited and woven in cotton to give a bark-like effect.
"Having my work exhibited at Canopy is great, coming so soon after also doing a short display at the QUAD centre."
Louisa Hurdis, Buyer for Canopy, said: "We are really excited to be working with the Fashion students at the University of Derby. I'd like to think that at some point in the future we will be buying Lucinda or Charlotte's collections to sit alongside our other designers."
Fiona Hawthorne, Senior Lecturer for the University's BA (Hons) Fashion Studies degree course, said all the students had been enthusiastic about the opportunity of showing in Canopy on Sadler Gate.
She added: "As much as possible we try and get our students to imagine their clothes being out there on the High Street. These two designers have certainly got a great head start in that respect."
Running from June 1 to 12 the University's Degree Shows - this year entitled 'Odyssey' - feature works by students in film, photography, textiles, fashion, product design, architecture, fine art and many other subjects; in free public exhibitions at the University's Markeaton Street and Britannia Mill sites, in Derby.
The Degree Shows period includes two major fashion shows in the Great Hall at Derby's Assembly Rooms, at 1.30pm and 7.30pm on Thursday June 7. Members of the public, industry professionals, and school and college students will see hundreds of new and innovative designs grace the catwalk for the first time, worn by professional models.
To attend the fashions shows - tickets price £3 to £10, concessions £5 and VIP tickets £15 - contact the Derby Live box office on 01332 255800 or go to website www.derbylive.co.uk
For more information please contact Press & PR Officer Sean Kirby on 01332 591891 or 07876 476103, or email s.kirby@derby.ac.uk
