Part 1: Meet Paula, our Head of Design
Paula, our Head of Design and Product Imagery, talks to us about her design background, what inspires her and what she’s currently working on at Wool Overs.
Paula is wearing a Classic UNISEX V NECK CARDIGAN (REF- C68) 90% Cotton / 10% Cashmere
Paula was born into an artistic family and can be said to have creativity in her blood. She designed her own pieces during her teen years, which she would sell at London markets in order to supplement her income whilst studying her Textile BA (Hons) Degree in Knitwear Design at Middlesex.
The collection Paula presented as part of the final year graduate degree show was awarded first prize in the highly prestigious industry led Texprint Award competition. This is a major industry honour and recognition of both her technical ability and commercial design acumen.
After graduating, Paula started her career in the East End rag trade before moving onto leading knitwear design roles in the UK’s premier high street fashion retailers including Burberry, M&S, Dorothy Perkins, New Look, Monsoon, Phase Eight, BHS and George at ASDA over what is a long and highly successful career.
Joining Wool Overs has bought a welcome return to her knitwear roots and to be part of a more intimate and dynamic business, with many exciting opportunities for her to use her experience to make a real difference.
Tell us a little about how you got into design?
I was interested in design and clothing from a very young age. My mum was an artist and Graphic designer and very creative, so she was my main influence. I didn’t do A-Levels as I went straight to College to study a Fashion HND, because I always knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to design clothes.
What is special to knitwear design, rather than general clothing design?
Unlike designing clothes with woven fabrics where a designer from a sketch will cut into it a fabric to create the design, what’s known as “cut and sew”, the knitwear designer can use this process or construction of the knit, which is called “fully fashioned”. This means that the individual pieces that make up a garment are engineered so that each piece is knitted together at the seams. Also by the very nature of creating a fabric for each style you can treat it in a three-dimensional way adding cables or textures, or creating patterns like Fairisle or simple stripes.
What are the challenges about your job as a knitwear designer?
It doesn’t matter if you are in a large or small company the same skills are needed. You need the basic technical skills but also you have to have an understanding of your market and customer. Research, analysis and commerciality are crucial. So communication is key. Getting your ideas forward and the reason behind them is important when presenting to a CEO, or buying and merchandise teams.
I do lots of research and create mood boards regularly to communicate lots of different areas of the concept, such as colours, trends, range, seasons, knits, so it’s all easier to understand the thought process behind the next collection.
Paula’s mood boards: A/W 2014, Christmas 2014 and some general ideas.
The other major part of my role is producing the photographic imagery. This includes art direction on how I want the collection to be styled and shot, so the models, accessories etc that should be used and general look and feel we want. This is a truly great journey from initial design concept, range build, production through to final presentation of the range both on line and within our brochures.
Who inspires you in the industry?
Three women spring to mind, who I have worked with that I admire.
Yasmin Yusuf taught me and gave me a real excitement about constructed textiles and especially knitwear. Yasmin mentored me and encouraged me to move from fashion design at HND level to do a textile degree. She has had very senior roles at Harvey Nicholls, Warehouse and was Creative Director at M&S. I had the good fortune to meet up with her again when I was a Design Manager within Arcadia. Yasmin has a different approach to retail, she is inspired by vintage clothing and maintains a huge archive of beautiful styles, which is a fantastic resource.
Image source: www.thenational.ae
Jane Shepherdson is really inspiring. She was Buying Director for years at Top Shop and then oversaw our team at Dorothy Perkins for a while, where I met her, and is now currently the Chief Executive at Whistles. This year she was awarded a CBE for her service to the industry. Jane has a fantastic eye, but probably more importantly she has great personal skills and always has a positive outlook.
Image source: http://www.fashionreview.co.uk
Frances Tobin is very creative and whatever medium she turns her hand too, it’s always executed to the highest standard and is always beautiful. Frances covered my maternity leave when I had my first child and from then we became close friends. She also specialised in colour for architecture in social public places, such as hospitals, is a successful interior designer and has now set up own bespoke pattern making company, The Makers Atelier. Truly inspirational.
Image source: www.themakersatelier.com
What are you working on at the moment?
I have just finished launching the new S/S15 collection, so that includes compiling the new brochures and preparing the website for the launch. Also importantly, I presented the new range to all our staff at Woolly HQ and they loved it!
So now S/S15 is out of the way, it’s time to put on my other hat and start designing A/W15. On the back of the success of the new scarves over Christmas last year, we are going to introduce an Accessories range for A/W15, which will be perfect for the season and Christmas period.
Can you give us some highlights of the SS15 collection?
The new styles are in our gorgeous, lightweight Silk & Cotton and Cotton & Cashmere ranges and although we are saying this is our S/S15 collection, both of these blended yarns and in fact, all of our signature fabrics are trans-seasonal, this is the beauty of the Wool Overs brand. We have a total of 19 new styles & 11 new colours, 4 for Silk & Cotton and 9 in Cotton & Cashmere across the two yarns and have introduced some new unisex styles into the Silk & Cotton, as I believe men will love this yarn as much as our female customers do.
A few favourite styles I’d like to highlight are the Polo Neck jumper, which I think will become one of our essential pieces and I can foresee this being in every colour very soon although for now it’s in 10 great colours.
Unisex Polo Neck Jumper
30% Silk / 70% Cotton
Offer price £28 or 2 for £50.
We’ve added some textured pieces to the Silk & Cotton range, from waffle and bubble stitches to simple rib structures. One of our best sellers is a Lace Trimmed Camisole, we now have a Long Line Lace Trim Camisole and a Lace Trimmed Cardigan which I’m very excited about and in our new Cotton & Cashmere range we have a couple of styles just for women this year; an Edge to Edge Cardigan and a Short Sleeved Tunic.
Ladies Lace Trimmed Longline Camisole
30% Silk / 70% Cotton
Offer price £25 or 2 for £45
Ladies Lace Trimmed Vee Neck Cardigan
30% Silk / 70% Cotton
Offer price £29 or 2 for £52
My Personal favourite is the Colour Block Sweatshirt, which again is a classic but adds more choice to our range.
Cashmere & Cotton Block Sweatshirt
90% Cotton / 10% Cashmere
Offer price £29 or 2 for £52
Keep a look out for Part 2 as Paula discusses the style rules she doesn’t break and some of her Wool Overs favourites…
All prices correct on date of publish.
