There are some collections that walk the runway and never stop running through your mind, countless shows later. Charlotte Barry’s unforgettable Autumn Winter 2011 collection, a mustard-gold extravaganza of intricate hand embellishment and winner of the Barnett Lawson trimmings award, is one of these.
After gracing the London College of Fashion catwalk as well as a coveted spot at the Vauxhall Fashion Scout graduate showcase, the young designer is still catching her breath. 1883 caught up with Charlotte over coffee to discuss her collection and her plans for the future.
Charlotte is 22, soft-spoken and somehow devoid of that fame-hungry look in so many young designers eyes. Indeed, the success of her collection seems to have caught her by surprise. “I knew I’d been nominated for the trimmings award, but I had a bit of a deer in the headlights moment when they announced the winner! I was just pushed down the catwalk with my model…I wasn’t expecting it but it was amazing!”
Now that she has recovered and completed her Surface Textiles BA (Hons) at the London College of Fashion, Charlotte’s plan is to start work in the textiles department for a design house. Although she has a Spring Summer follow-up collection in mind, her first priority is to gain more experience working in-house for a fashion brand. “I think it’s important to get experience after studying, before diving into your own brand. I love the textile department at Louis Vuitton, I feel like it could be a lot of fun to work there. I don’t think they have much of a budget issue either, so you can experiment a lot! Another design house I could see myself working at for a long time is Marni…their shapes are so classic and their textiles are always very innovative and interesting”.
Charlotte’s decorative designs reflect this passion for textiles, as well as her fanatic attention to detail. Materials and an experimental hand are clearly what define her aesthetic, with her stunning combinations of embroidery, fringe, and beading on simple silhouettes for high-impact yet sophisticated garments. The colours and shapes came from an unexpected source of inspiration; “If I hadn’t studied fashion I would have studied classics, it’s my second favorite subject. So I had this idea about the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum that were destroyed in a volcanic eruption, and were buried in lava and ash completely.
Everything there was preserved because of the nature of the ash, so all the mosaics and wall paintings were all in perfect condition, with really rich colours that hadn’t faded. I like the idea of a perfect ruin…everything is preserved but there are cracks in it”. The resulting depth of texture and richness of colour, (varied tones of gold, copper, mustard and burnt orange), make for modern dresses and seperates that gush of antiquity yet beg to be worn and photographed.
Charlotte closed our interview with this advice for aspiring designers; “Trust your gut. Work hard. No one gets it for free”. And after countless sleepless nights stitching, beading and braiding, not to mention a ten hour session peeling the backings off embellishments, (with the help of three seasons of Sex and the City and a “shitload of coffee”), its obvious that she practices what the preaches. But this dedication to her craft stems from a love for it: “When you are faced with the choice of sitting in front of a computer screen for a whole day or sitting surrounded by loads of interesting little things to play with…there is just no debate”.
You can check out Charlotte’s collection at www.charlottelucybarry.com
Words by Emma Freed
