Ella Roberts, design process

Ella Roberts’ collection was inspired by a trip to Catania, Sicily in 2018. Hundreds of abandoned fishing nets laid covering the harbour. This inspired a tailoring collection called ‘Need and Greed’, which aimed to bring attention to explore areas of greed within an uncertain Brexit era, where the property laws at sea are little to none and overfishing of our waters is happening as a daily routine.

In order to bring to light the issue of greed, Ella aimed to overuse the amount of fabric actually needed to create a tailored suit, to show how the fishing industry can be greedy at times. To do this, Ella started draping interesting forms on the stand, using old tailored jackets and calico. As the shapes and designs developed, it was decided that the theme for the collection would be to mirror the pattern pieces to create interesting fold lines and volume.

As the collection came together, it was decided that a colour palette of dark and dull tones contrasted with neon piping and trims would work best. These came from the initial research images from the nets in Sicily, which showed decaying nets with colourful floats and bouys.