Dress made from doll’s clothes is perfect fit

22 June 2016

A dress made from hundreds of Barbie clothes was one of the stunning designs from University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) fashion student Jasmin Gaskell

A dress made from hundreds of Barbie clothes was one of the stunning designs from University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) students which wowed the public, media and industry elite at Graduate Fashion Week.

Fashion student Jasmin Gaskell from Greenodd spent a full week sewing more than 500 Barbie doll clothes together and coating them in rubber ready for the annual showcase of the country’s best up-and coming designers.

Dame Vivienne Westwood was among the guests who saw Jasmin’s design at the four-day extravaganza, which counts Victoria Beckham and Burberry’s Christopher Baily as lifetime patrons, earlier this month.

The dress was a signature piece of Jasmin’s final year project, focusing on the theme of ‘Trash to Treasure.’

Students had to design and make an entire collection, creating everything from the marketing literature to the garments themselves.

"Graduate Fashion Week was crazy and an amazing experience. It’s given me fantastic exposure which is great because once I leave university I hope to get a job as a designer in London."

Jasmin, 22, said: “The collection is based on the opposite ends of scale, mixing huge oversized silhouettes with miniature dolls clothes. I wanted to create a contemporary and minimal collection which incorporated all the tactile properties that the dolls clothes represent.

“Sewing this particular dress took me a full week in total but it was the planning and preparation on top of that which took the most time. I spent hours on eBay and at car boot sales finding the doll’s clothes, I even got some of them from Hong Kong.

“Graduate Fashion Week was crazy and an amazing experience. It’s given me fantastic exposure which is great because once I leave university I hope to get a job as a designer in London.”

Things could have been very different for Jasmin, however, as she originally planned to study nursing.

“All my family work in medicine and I’d planned to become a nurse, although fashion is something I’ve always been interested in,” she explains. “Two weeks before the university application deadline I had a sudden change of heart and applied to fashion instead. I’m so glad I did, it’s been the best decision I’ve ever made.

“I’ve loved my time at UCLan. One of the things I like best is how friendly it is, you feel really comfortable and I’ve had some great opportunities.”

Jasmin’s designs were also under the spotlight at UCLan’s annual degree show celebrating students’ creative work.