BA (Hons) Fashion Design & Promotion student Elizabeth Martindale discovered her creative flair and taste for fashion at a young age when her grandmother bought her first sewing machine.
“My grandmother and I would indulge in the pages of Vogue and Tatler, fantasising about the beautiful pieces. These fashion magazines inspired my ideas and dreams for a future career”, Elizabeth said.
She continued: “Through secondary school and college, I knew that, in a highly competitive industry, in order to succeed I needed to be at the top of my game. During my time at college I exhibited my work at Florence Mine Art Centre, which was shown to many audiences, this really pushed me and helped me gain a great amount of confidence.
“I decided that university would help me towards this by having the amazing facilities and external opportunities to not only build on my current skill set, but also the skills needed to progress into employment within the Fashion industry.
“I chose my course of study at the University of Sunderland as not only would I be learning the design and construction elements of fashion, but I could also learn the promotion, marketing and journalism elements which would serve me well, in terms of having the knowledge to not only stand out, but to back up my skills with the actual knowledge behind all aspects of the industry.”
As Elizabeth embarked on the first semester of her degree, she applied for the Mike Davies Scholars Fund and was one of the four successful recipients who is receiving a financial support package of up to £1,000 per year and bespoke 1-1 mentoring opportunities with Mike Davies CBE.
Elizabeth has been working during her second year her hardest at home. During the first semester her work was heavily based on the illustration side of the fashion industry all the way to branding.
She added: “Now in semester two I have a range of different modules from graphics all the way through to styling. The styling module that I’m partaking on is with both the fashion and journalism students. This opens up so many contacts for future work and I am very excited to explore this industry more.”
Elizabeth will be using some of the scholarship funds to purchase photography equipment and some machinery to use at home to bring a brand to live.
She concluded: “If in the future I got the chance to make and design my own brand, my main focus would be to be as environmentally friendly as possible as this is a major issue both currently and going forward. Prior and currently through my university course my designs have been heavily influenced in the lingerie sector, if I could choose exactly where I wanted to be in 5 years’ time I would love to be designing/ constructing these types of garments.”