Tell Us More: Sophie Gittins

Vogue loves her. We love her. Now you can love her, too. Sophie Gittins tells Fash Pack about training at Chloe, meeting Manolo Blahnik, and gaining a surprisingly sweet perspective from insects.

(Can you tell we're getting excited for some fabulous British designing at London Fashion Week?)


When did you start designing?
It’s hard to say when I first started officially but I’ve always been altering things and adding details. Friday teatimes were normally dominated by me attempting some hideously complicated alteration to a dress of some description – I remember painstakingly spending hours stitching lace roses onto some shoes only to change my mind the next day and snip them off again.

Did you ever do textiles or accessories, or was it straight to shoes?
I did textiles at school but it was more the creative process that I was drawn to rather than the subject itself. I was in my final year of school when Cordwainers became part of London College of Fashion and I read about it in class – I remember it really clearly as it was there and then I decided that was what I wanted to do.

How'd you come up with your bumblebee logo, which appears on the soles of all your shoes?
My grandmother owned an antique shop and my mother and father both have a strong interest in antiques, so every house I’ve lived in I’ve been surrounded by antiques. There had always been a bronze and marble bee on my mother’s desk which I’d loved. After researching the symbolism of the bee and bumblebee I found the bumblebee has come to represent achieving the impossible, which I felt had a particular resonance to a luxury shoe brand launching in the midst of a recession!

Talk about some of your favourite projects with Jennefer Osterhoudt with Wunderkind and Chloe.
Working with Jenne was very inspirational. On my first day I was very daunted - I looked through her ‘book’ and it was literally filled with all of the shoes that I’d seen and coveted as a teenager looking through Vogue. I was with her whilst she was at Chloe and so it was fantastic to be able to see how a design house of that scale puts everything together and creates and entire ‘look’.

Do you have any upcoming projects or shows you'd like to talk about? What designer would you love to collaborate with?
I recently collaborated with New Gen designer Hannah Marshall – it was fun to play around with a darker aesthetic as I normally produce more classically feminine designs, but after discussing ideas it became clear that the core values were the same – strong silhouettes, richly contrasting textures and highest quality materials and craftsmanship.

What's been inspiring you lately?
This collection is predominantly based around the early 20th-century Viennese movement “Weiner Werkstatte” which produced work in every discipline, from textiles and jewellery to ceramics and furniture. I was heavily influenced by the graphic prints and strong shapes of their distinctive furniture.

What person would you love to see wearing your shoes?
I love the style of Emilia Fox: very classic but never dull.

Where can people buy your shoes?
I’m realistic that in my first season in the current economic climate I may not get stockists straight away, so I’ve treated my first capsule collection as an exercise to create some designs that I feel are representative of what I am trying to achieve in the future, on a broader scale, rather than angling for commercial appeal from the outset.

What's been your proudest moment in fashion?
I think it’s split between personally, when I achieved my First from Cordwainers – which I had always always wanted to achieve and worked like a Trojan in order to do so, and professionally, when I reached the Finals of Fashion Fringe last year and went to meet with Manolo Blahnik, Colin McDowell and Rupert Sanderson, all of which are tremendously inspiration men who have achieved so much.

What's something you wish you knew from the beginning that you'd like young designers to know?
This is where the London College of Fashion is crucial as they drum into you not to neglect the business side of things – in order to have the luxury of working for yourself and a creative career you have to have had a solid grounding of business knowledge as the two things go hand in hand and one cannot progress without the other.

Tell Us More: Couture Clubbing

Holographic leather: the two words you need to know to understand the novelty of Kseniya Zagorodnyuk and Amy Winters. They met while studying at Central St Martins and used their shared love of epic opera and the theatre to start their very own, very futuristic fashion line, Couture Clubbing.

Here, they tell the Fash Pack why Grace Jones will always be cool, how electrical engineering is just another part of the job, and what they'll be doing in Paris next month.


When did the two of you start designing?
Kseniya started designing at the age of 10. She was a lead dancer in a dance group and was designing costumes for dance shows. Later she started designing and making clothes for herself and her mum. She had a nickname at the school, 'Miss Extravagance', because of unusual outfits she was wearing.

Amy always loved painting and fabric. During her school days she was a magpie, adoring anything sparkly, shiny and beautiful. She created exotic costumes inspired by Venetian masks and Viennese palaces.

Who do you have in mind when thinking up your looks?
We design for a sophisticated woman who knows what she wants from life. She is successful in what she is doing. She loves living on the edge; she plays risky games but always gets rewarded. She is confident and experimental. She loves luxury, but also is very creative. She wants to be the first one to discover the new and to have something that no one else has got. She wants to be ahead of everyone, of her time. She is neither flashy nor understated; she wants to be noticed but also respected. She is beautiful and feminine - she wants her clothes to show it. She walks in the room and everyone admires her. She is the centre of attention.

Who’s your dream client?
Madonna, because she is feminine but very powerful and experimental. Grace Jones, because she is like an idol, like a goddess - mystic and extremely glamorous! Angelina Jolie, because she is beautiful but her beauty is very unusual. She is like a creature from another world.

And your dream collaboration?
We are already collaborating with major technological companies on developing innovative materials for fashion, and we are planning to keep collaborating with them as we believe that this cross collaboration of design and science can bring astonishing rewards. We would also love to collaborate with various museums such as the V&A, Tate Modern and design museums in holding special events and exhibitions of fashion products that bring fashion forward.

Talk a little more about your holographic fabric.
We have developed holographic-print leather and combined it with extreme luxury. The fabric changes colour and images depending on the light and angle, something that is completely set apart from ordinary fabrics. It definitely has the ‘wow’ factor as it is completely unique and we are the first to develop and bring it to market. Indulgent, contrasting fabrics give depth to an ultra-feminine silhouette; holographic leather fuses with soft silk, crepe and cashmere.

When can we see your next show?
We are showing our new collection at the trade show in Paris in March '09 (the date is to be confirmed).

What’s your best piece of advice for designers new to the field?
Try to get as much as experience in the industry as you can as it will save you from making mistakes - although mistakes are important and everything you learn will be valuable for the future! Setting up a label will be difficult and if you decide to go for it, stay determined, follow your passion and don’t look back.