Taking inspiration from her childhood in Vancouver, final year Fashion Design Student Abigail Skrentny is able to create a collection that really shows her understanding of the freedom of childhood.

Interview by Lewis Evans

In her graduate collection, Abi studies the contrast of the ‘prep’ girl against suburban American ‘freedom’ based partly on the story of her father who grew up in suburban Chicago before moving to an English boarding School.

Further inspiration comes from films like The Florida Projectwhich explore the idea of childhood freedom and captures the essence and resilience of being a child. Abi explains that its not childhood she attempting to get across but the idea of not caring about what people think of you and doing ‘it’ anyway. Abi decided to use a minimal colour scheme of rich purple, strong green and a mixed range of pinks, partly, based on childhood pictures of snowsuits.

Abi explained that she’s inspired by real people, she prefers a quiet story compared to an extraordinary story, to some seeming boring but to her really standing out. Abi’s design process includes gathering a huge amount of her research and continuously drawing as she keeps changing and developing her ideas until she designs something that she’s proud of.

I asked Abi “Are you happy with your collection so far?”, she replied with “not yet, I always like to develop and improve my work, it’s the smaller things that I get pleasure from like sewing a perfect seem or figuring how to create something that I found quite difficult. By not being completely satisfied with your work it pushes you to work harder and helps you to overcome challenges”.

Abi’s advice to any other upcoming fashion design student is don’t be afraid of a challenge. By experimenting with different materials and techniques she is able to develop and grow as a designer. By taking her own style and spending some time on strengthening her weaknesses helps her to prepare for a future job within the fashion industry.