Catwalk joy for young Shropshire designer Alexandra
She’s a model student and now Shropshire's Alexandra Thomas has seen her designs take to the catwalk as part of London Fashion Week.
Alexandra, from Edgmond, near Newport, had her lingerie designs chosen by industry experts to be featured in a show in Covent Garden.
The talented designer said: “It was overwhelming. Months of hard work paid off. It was a really proud moment.”
Alexandra, a student at De Montford University in Leicester, is now hoping for a career in fashion design.
The 22-year-old said she had no real interest in fashion before the contour fashion course at De Montford University, which has helped her travel all over the world in search of new skills and influences.
She designed and made the collection which was chosen by a group of industry professionals to be show at the annual catwalk show in Covent Garden earlier this month.
"I'm looking forward to the future – I feel hopeful and motivated," she said.
Alexandra's collection is called 'Artists at Work' and is inspired by her love of art, specifically French impressionists and their paintings.
She was inspired by her favourite artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and what artists wore at that time, as she said they had a sort of uniform which had an element of comfort which is mirrored in her work.
Alexandra wanted to base the collection on something she loved as she would be spending so much of her time on it over the year.
She also moved to China for a year on a placement, where she learned how to design and improved her skills with intricate designs which are often used on lingerie which gave her more confidence.
Each bra cost Alexandra about £70 to make. She said they had to be good quality and that the materials needed are expensive.
Having her work displayed was a big achievement, especially as she had never sewed before she joined the course.
Alexandra also came third in a competition where she designed a piece of lingerie for the luxury lingerie brand Coco de Mer London.
Alexandra will graduate from De Montfort University in July and hopes to work abroad in America or Hong Kong as a lingerie designer.
