Tamera Francis’ graduate collection is inspired by her mother and the nights out she used to have when her and her sisters would make their own clothes at home, wear them out and party all night and there was always a Jamaican dancehall theme to it. Clothes were made quickly and with no rules, her mum has told her funny stories of their clothes falling apart whilst on the dance floor, which has inspired Tamera to look into ways of manipulating fabric and textiles as if it was torn apart.

To achieve this, as a knitwear designer, she explored techniques such as ladders and lace holes varying at different scales. With dancehall culture being connected to nightlife culture Tamera also incorporated cider and beer bottle tops and can tabs into pocket knitting. The bottle caps were a mixture from ciders/ beers Tamera and her friends drink along with Jamaican beer bottle tops collected from Jamaica. Tamera also explored 90s/00s trends such as two tone denim and embellishments such as gems in order to portray the era her mothers nights out happened in.

Originally the form would have been a final collection showcased at her graduate fashion show. However since we went into lock down, she has reinterpreted her second look at a smaller scale by embroidering onto tracing paper with her yarns. Tamera also replicated bottle caps by drawing them on paper using posca pens and pro markers. This was then modelled on bottles of rum, made her own mini club with the materials she had lying around and created it into a stop motion video using an app she downloaded on her phone.