Leah Moss, 22, just completed her fourth year at Birmingham City University where she studied Fashion Design. Leah’s graduate collection, ‘Strike a Romance’, explores the narrative on all matters through the Miners’ Strike.
The Miner’s Strike is known as a major industrial action the British coal industry had to face in the 1980s’. The designer took inspiration from her Grandad who was a miner based in South Yorkshire.
"The collection also explores the subculture of the New Romantics, inspired by the music groups formed in Sheffield. Focusing on the escape into the scene of the ‘Blitz’ and understanding the styles of what it means to be a true New Romantic", says Leah.
From a young age, Leah loved going to the theatre, to watch musicals and to see the costumes in each production. "I always loved seeing how the designers took their own approach to create the characters." This influenced Leah as she decided to learn more about it by choosing textiles at school.
Few years after, Leah went to college to study Fashion Design. Although the course didn’t have a Costume Design Course, Leah knew that she wants to start creating her own concept and bringing this across her collections.
When the time came to prepare for university, Leah was torn between fashion design and costume design. "With completing more projects I’ve realised it was fashion design that I wanted to pursue. With costume design, there are limits as you have to stick to a character but with fashion, any ideas you have can come to life."
Photo Credit: George Harris
Leah’s designs are bold, especially when it comes to colour. "I like to bring my personality through my designs and I can express this with the colour palette."
Leah likes to push boundaries while creating her new designs. "I feel there are no limits when it comes to fashion design, so I usually like to create unique pieces." The designer never creates anything traditional. She loves merging more than one concept into her designs as it gives her more depth into what she creates.
For her ‘Strike a Romance’ collection Leah wanted to use as many fabrics and techniques as possible to enhance the collection. "Each fabric was relevant to the concept. They were all reminiscent of the 80s. I’ve tried to focus on much clash as possible and with the fabrics, it was the clash between heritage and non-heritage fabrics." The designer also created fabrics herself, which added a personal feel to the collection.
For Leah, it was important to create something unisex. Leah believes that it should be more collections that blur the lines between genders. "We are all such unique individuals. I want clothes to be available for everyone."
Leah took part in her first design competition while she was at college. It was a collaboration between John Smedley and Made in Derbyshire. Leah had to create a scarf which could be sold afterwards.
"We were lucky enough to actually go to the John Smedly factory and to see where the jumpers were produced. I took my inspiration for my scarf design from the architecture of the roof which I’ve seen in the factory and I won!." This victory opened an opportunity to have work experience in the design department.
Leah’s university offered a sandwich year where the designer was able to take a year out to work in the industry. Leah spend 6 months in New York working at Ralsey, a knitwear specialist that catered for the likes of Target and Wallmart.
"I loved this job as I focused on the trend research. I was on Vogue and WGSN on a daily basis collating all the trends that were happening. I had to go through each collection from each season and save any looks that reflected colour, pattern, print or jumpers in any way possible. It may sound like a boring job but I loved it."
Leah worked with a lot of people from the industry and was always given design jobs compare to some students who had similar experiences to the Devils Wear Prada.
"With COVID-19 not a lot of brands/companies are hiring which is a bit upsetting as those 4 years at University won’t come into use." At the moment Leah doesn’t have any plans for the future but she wants to be able to work in the fashion industry and do what she loves the most - create new designs.
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