Katherine Adair is a designer from the North East of England, having studied in University of Brighton, graduating in 2020. She is passionate about avant-garde fashion with an edge, further influenced through her love of literature and theatre.

Her BA comprises of a strong, dark womenswear collection of wearable pieces elevated for the catwalk, for those interested in powerful, conceptual dressing. An exploration of serpents in mythology and their physicality. The dangerous but sensual correlations of snakes have influenced the collection, creating a luxurious mood, intended for those passionate about well-crafted and unique clothing.

‘This collection was born from the Greek snake Myths Medusa and Cadmus from Ovid’s Metamorphose and the Chinese White Snake myth. This lead me to look at anatomy and life cycles of serpents, skin shedding informing my structural and fabric choices. Asian traditional dress such as the Kimono, was explored and John Galliano’s interpretations of this in his 1994 collection. Obi belts became a key feature to constrict and elongate the torso in order to create a more snake like silhouette.

Laser cutting is prevalent in the collection to convey spines, using the negatives space of the snake spines to produce unusual shapes, hinting at spines in a subtle but dark way. Organza features heavily in order to help convey structure and body to curving shapes as well as variations in colour depth.

To achieve a serpentine effect I included continuous, undulating seams. I did this through creative cutting, looking at designer Isabel Toledo and costume designer Geneviève Sevin-Doering, both of whom use unconventional patterns. This then lead me to then explore ‘Transformational Reconstruction’ cutting, in particular pattern cutter Shingo Sato, to achieve a fitted silhouette with unconventional seams. The mood of the collection was influenced by the film Melancholia by director Lars Von Trier which paints a dark, twisted dystopia’.