Susannah’s eco-friendly bag earns a London show

Mar 15 2008 by Laura Sharpe, Liverpool Daily Post

AN ASPIRING Liverpool fashion student has been picked to showcase her talents at this year’s Graduate Fashion Week in London.

Dingle student Susannah O’Driscoll, 22, wowed judges with an eco-friendly bag and fought off competition from university students across the UK.

Her bag, a triangular Ikea paper lampshade, lined with a black gloss handle, was chosen alongside eight other accessories which will be modelled in London.

A former architecture student, Susannah is in her first year of a fashion course at Liverpool John Moores University.

Her recycled lampshade bag, which cost under the £30 brief to make, was chosen by celebrity stylist Chloe Beeney and River Island’s buying director Farida Kaikobad for being fun, upbeat and sexy.

She beat two fellow students shortlisted in the competition, one of whom made a bag out of a pair of clogs.

Susannah said: “I never expected to win, it was just one of my project pieces.

“All of the 70 or more students on my course entered and students from 48 other universities, so I never thought I would be chosen.

“The idea first came from a huge overhanging paper lamp. I was just looking at it one day, then I picked up an old triangular paper lampshade which had a rip in it and I thought why don’t I re-use it and make it into a bag.

“The paper bag which will be displayed is impractical as it is, but I’d like to develop the idea and use vintage or recycled material to make similar triangular and round bags.”

A former student of Finbars Primary and Bellerive High School, Susannah is no stranger to fashion as she and her sister already own two vintage fashion outlets. Her first shop, Flashback Boutique, in the Petticoat arcade on Bold Street opened last year and the pair have since launched the brand inside John Lewis.

Susannah said: “It’s hard to believe I studied for three years to become an architect because fashion is my true love.

“I’ve always loved fashion and clothes, but I don’t follow high street fashion or even modern designers.

“ I love vintage and clothes from the 1940s to the early 90s. I’m inspired by what’s around me in the shop and I love Mary Quant and Twiggy, handmade clothes and recycled materials.”

With a keen interest in image and print, Susannah hopes to explore pattern cutting and launch two new labels, Sue Ray and I Am Art, a collective design label with friends.

Her recent projects include a psychedelic canvas bag with images inspired by collage artist Peter Blake’s exhibition at the Tate last October.

Susannah said: “I’m interested in pattern cutting at the moment because it’s an area I’ve not done much on.

“Designer Julian Roberts came to the university and his Vivienne Westwood style designs inspired me. I’d like to use circles, triangles and other shapes to create different abstract patterns.”

Graduate Fashion Week, sponsored by River Island, takes place in June and attracts some of the industry’s biggest names and influential designers.

Judge Chloe Beeney said: “All entrants have taken the brief and surpassed our highest expectations. An inventive use of recycled materials, out of the box thinking and genuine enthusiasm have proved that you can both recycle and be fashionable.”

laurasharpe