Rachel Wadia is a women’s wear designer based near London who graduated from the University of Northampton.  Rachel was born in 1992 in Bedfordshire.

 

 

Much of her childhood was spent going around Patchwork and Quilting exhibitions with her mother and learning to sew from a young age. She always had a keen interest in researching, designing and sewing. Her interest continued to grow throughout her teenage years and she went to her local college to study art and design. 

 

 

Fine art has always been a big inspiration to Rachel since she was at college, she was trained to look into the meaning of pieces more effectively and since doing that it changed her view on art.  Ai Wei Weis Sunflower Seed installation really inspired her, this is why she loves the most intricate of pieces, she takes the time to look at the beauty of each adorned piece. Rachel believes that the smallest detail could make the biggest impact.

 

 

Duchamp is another artist that has inspired her greatly, he taught her that by doing something differently you can have a big impact. This is why for her third year collection she decided to take the risk of doing something different. By wanting to experiment, she found a part of herself that she pushes now to go further.

 

 

Throughout her Final Major Project at university she experimented with the idea of not using patterns but knotting together fabrics to create evocative yet sophisticated pieces. Using long laser cut pieces of silks, she would work on intensifying the silhouette to have garments that ooze sensual sophistication by using fluid shapes that give a highly contemporary style.  Rachel adores pattern cutting and intricate, detailed and specialized pieces. During her time at university she also completed a course at Central Saint Martins where she studied experimental and explorative pattern cutting.

 

 

Some of Rachel’s main influences throughout her studying years were Givenchy, Iris Van Herpen, Yohji Yamamoto and Haider Aackerman. Rachel is mainly inspired by organic shapes, which you can tell from all her work. She enjoys having surface textures of some sort and a beautiful flowing shape.

 

Her design style has dramatic silhouettes andintricate details. Some of her pieces need more than one look to understand the detail inside of them.

 

 

 

At university Rachel participated in a competition to research, design and Prototype a Fur garment. Rachel used rock layers as her inspiration, which she used to create a mini dress, which had smallpanels going around the body to accentuate the models body. The dress was going to have varying shades of grey fox fur.

 

 

Rachel enjoys designing High Street clothing to Couture Designer wear; this is something she has always been very passionate about. Recently having the chance to complete an internship at Quintana Couture where she was able to work alongside the designer Juan Carlos Quintana; whilst there she was able to work on his signature line and also on some of his high profile clients garments.

 

 

Rachel’s ideal client is someone willing to take a risk and have an aura of confidence about them when wearing one of Rachel’s pieces, these pieces will give them the confidence to get what she wants. Rachel aspirations are to work within a design team creating high street to high-end luxury wear.