A journey to Graduate Fashion Week | Marina Thomas

A journey to Graduate Fashion Week | Marina Thomas |

May 29, 2019 0 Comments

It’ll be Graduate Fashion Week again soon. Lot’s of fashion graduates will be showcasing their talents there. For many, it is the end and a beginning. The end of their time at their respective universities, and hopefully an exciting beginning as full time designers ‘in the real world’, should that be a dream of theirs. Fashion L’amour Magazine is going to feature a few that we think are destined for great things. Starting with Marina Thomas, a recent fashion graduate from the London College of Fashion.

1. Tell us about your journey into fashion, and how you ended up deciding to study for it?
I have always painted and had a love for the juxtaposition of colour, shape and texture in fashion and in nature. After school I ran a vintage clothes stall for a few years while completing a degree in psychology where I developed my interest in fashion- particularly in sustainability and good quality clothing.

2. How has your experience at the London College of Fashion been?
Creating a collection by myself from start to finish, from design to pattern cutting and sewing was a very satisfying experience.
This would not have been possible if it had not been for the amazing teaching and support I received at LCF. Throughout my four year, part time womenswear fashion design, degree at LCF, I also worked in the design team at Katharine Hamnett. This was an amazing experience and complimented my degree more perfectly than I could have imagined. I feel very lucky to have progressed from intern to design assistant in this time and am grateful for their support of my studies.

3. What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learnt there do you think?
Having worked throughout my degree I have learnt that to succeed I must be efficient and decisive, all the while maintaining the crucial attention for detail. I have also become skilled at multitasking and prioritising under pressure which I believe will serve me well for my future working in fashion.

4. So you’ve graduated, and you have a collection of your own to showcase, tell us more about that?

Xandrina- my graduate collection was initially inspired by studying the human mind. Focusing on to what extent we can control what goes on it it.
‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’- Milton (1667) Paradise Lost. This led me to study psychopaths brains where I found that there is a psychopath gene, called MAOA gene. Reports that 1/5 CEO’s have this gene implies that perhaps nurture can outweigh the affects of nature, or more pessimistically that perhaps we live in a very scary world where we put similar people in power as we do in prison.

5. How would you describe your signature look?

“Renaissance Futurism”

6. How do you source your materials?
Due to my interest in sustainability I wanted to use organic, sustainable, certified fabrics as far as possible. Due to these fabrics being difficult to source in small quantities, Katharine Hamnett kindly offered we do an up cycling initiative where her company gave me offcuts from previous seasons for me to use. I was therefore able to use some beautiful GOTS certified organic cotton muslin and moleskin as well as organic linen and silk which I then dyed myself. I also made some 3d printed, chain mail, style fabric which I used with some knitwear I had made. I used several varieties of brass from mesh to upholstery trim. I created digitally printed designs on fabrics from ink studies I had done as well as layer engraving on velvet and adding details with machine embroidery.

7. Apart from your own designs, which designer would you happily dress you everyday?
Currently I wear Katharine Hamnett most days but my wardrobe and I hope very much to add some Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen pieces into our lives someday soon.

8. What’s next for Marina Thomas?
I hope to get a job as a fashion designer in London when I graduate.
I’ll be showing my final collection at the London College of Fashion degree show on the 19th July at Here East. You can see more of my designs on my instagram – @marina_thomas