When Burberry visited BA (Hons) Fashion at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB), Jessica Horton thought it would be a regular chance to network and showcase her creative portfolio. Instead, it opened up a world of opportunities.
“Our lecturer Penny Norman set aside a few names, including me, to have a chat with Burberry and show them our portfolios. It wasn’t that there was going to be anything coming from it – as far as we knew. After that meeting, the manager of 3D Content Creation at Burberry reached out to me directly and asked if I’d be interested in working for them.”
It was while working on the digital team at Burberry that Jessica discovered the Modern Artisan Programme, focused on sustainability and practical skills. She saw this as a chance to both pursue her current interests and renew her previous experience.
“I love digital fashion; I think it’s the future, but I see it from more a sustainability point of view. I see it as using digital programmes in order to reduce waste, cut back costs and be more environmentally friendly. So when I saw the advert for the Modern Artisan Programme, it was about being more sustainable in the fashion industry, but it was about artisanal hand skills as well. I thought, ‘Well, I really love digital, but I also really want to get more hands-on again,’ and they were also interested in the fact that I could CLO3D, so it was a nice bridge between the two.”
After a hectic application the night before (in her own words), she took on the unique interview task of sewing a white shirt together from home, and after a few more questions on the day, she was accepted onto the programme.
“There were six of us that got in. The start of the project was at Net-a-Porter in London. Three months of researching and designing.”
The start of this capsule collection research made it clear to Jessica that this was a special collaboration, from learning and experiencing the design process to fascinating sources of inspiration and material – and being able to use royal wool.
“One of the main pieces of inspiration was Queen Victoria’s watercolours. We were allowed to go to Windsor Castle and go to see the Royal Collection Trust and have a look through those watercolours. We also had a visit to Scotland, and we went to the estate where we’d eventually be working, but we also got to go to the grounds of Balmoral. We were basically taking inspiration from the watercolours, but a lot of them are based on the Cairngorms and the Scottish Highlands and around the Balmoral estate.”
The sustainable focus of the project – with Dumfries House as an educational estate offering cooking classes from site-grown veg, hand-knitting and heritage building crafts – served as the perfect inspiration for the capsule collection. While Jessica and the team designed the knitwear to be manufactured in London for it, they manufactured and designed all their woven pieces for the capsule collection on site.
Learning the process and all stages of the designing a collection was insightful, but came with its challenges too.
“Moving to Scotland for six months was a challenge in itself. Scotland is absolutely beautiful but far away from friends and family. We had each other, obviously, and we had the people on the estate. Our tutors, who worked in the Textiles Centre with us, were there if we needed them for anything, and they were absolutely fantastic. It’s that thing that you would only get at industry level as well – learning how to work together properly. And because you know this is going to go out to the customer, you know that it’s not just a collection that we’re designing for uni. This is proper industry stuff and we need to make sure that it’s right. That was probably the most challenging thing, but we worked for it, and we had a good collection at the end."
The highlights of the project for Jessica included being featured on The One Show, meeting the King, and being able to use wool from His Majesty's sheep on the estate as part of the Modern Artisan Collection.
“There was a private ceremony beforehand where we got to meet His Majesty and got to shake his hand and have a little chat with him, and he was really nice! Super interested in what we were doing. He’s got a special interest in every programme that goes on, and he knows what everybody’s up to on the estate. Especially with the Modern Artisan Project – there’s been three iterations of it over five years, and he's the one who’ll often suggest things. I believe it was him that suggested we use the watercolours in the Royal Collection Trust for our research. He’s a very nice man and very funny! Very engaging as well. It was a surreal experience.”
Since this experience, Jessica’s been able to channel her experience and skills into local employment and create more collections. We asked what her plans for the future are, and the one piece of advice she’d give to current students.
“I’m working for a small company in Hampshire; a manufacturing company of sportswear and sports uniforms. What I’m doing at the moment is helping them to set up a private label, an athleisure and sportswear brand. It’s not my background, but it’s been a really good challenge and it’s been really interesting. I'm basically helping them set the brand up. I designed a capsule collection with them, and that’s getting released in November, so we’re about to go into manufacturing with it. I’m taking all the skills I learnt at uni, through industry roles and the Modern Artisan Project, into this role I’m doing at the moment. It’s been eye-opening.
“My one piece of advice is to go for any opportunities that come up. Don’t doubt yourself and think, ‘I don’t know if I’ll get this, so I won’t go for it.’ Just go for it, because even just applying for something is good experience. And you never know, you might get it. You might really surprise yourself. You might even apply the night before and suddenly find that you’re one of the final people!”
