Sophie Marshall is a Fashion Designer and Pattern Cutter who will graduate from The Glasgow School of Art in June 2020. Throughout her studies, Sophie has developed a keen interest in tailoring which has become a fundamental component of her graduate collection. Sophie spends a lot of time pattern cutting and has gained skills in creative pattern cutting for womenswear, founded on an understanding of cutting for traditional menswear tailoring. Although she is based in Glasgow, industry experience for high-end womenswear brands in London has solidified for her the strong feminine identity that she wishes to have as a designer.
Her practice is revolved around current socio-political issues, with a particular interest in gender and attempting to challenge society’s construction of femininity. In doing this, she uses a lot of traditional tailoring found in menswear, alongside silhouettes and fabrication techniques from women’s lingerie with the aim of creating a womenswear collection which doesn’t conform to gender norms. Sophie’s design process involves analysing the cultural significance of items of clothing- namely, traditional tailored pieces-and using these symbolic references to distort and subsequently rewrite society’s idea of how a woman should dress, look and behave.