THE work of a leading fashion graduate from Teesdale is to be re-created for the UK’s high street next year.
Jenni Healy, from Startforth, has won a paid scholarship opportunity with Tu at Sainsbury’s which will see her work alongside the brand’s womenswear team for the next 12 months. This time next year, her sixties-inspired “playful and kitsch” clothing collection will be on sale in Sainsbury’s stores nationwide.
Ms Healy has been studying for a fashion degree at Manchester School of Art for the past three years. Her womenswear collection, which won her the dream opportunity, was exhibited at the national Graduate Fashion Week event earlier this month – an annual event which celebrates the work of the world’s best 1,000 graduating young fashion designers.
Ms Healy, 22, said: “In my final year I was encouraged to enter competitions. I originally did not enterthe scholarship because it was on the same day as a deadline but my tutor came round and asked us to send our portfolios off. I just sent what I had and did not expect anything from it.
“About a month later I got an email to say I had been shortlisted. I had made it to the final 20 and I had an interview a couple of weeks later.
“I thought the interview went well. Being in fashion, people can be quite brutal. I am used to people being cold but they loved my work.”
After visiting the Tu headquarters in Coventry, Ms Healy was informed that she had made it to the final ten and the final five of the womenswear shortlist.
She said: “I remember reading it really late one night. I was so happy.”
It was during Graduate Fashion Week that Ms Healy got the news she had been dreaming of. She was announced as the winner of the Tu womenswear paid scholarship award.
She said: “I could not believe it when they said my name. I was not expecting to get it at all. It feels weird knowing my work is going to be made and sold in Sainsbury’s stores. I shop there and I like their clothes so it is amazing that this has happened.
“I still look at my collection and I don’t think it is that good but I think it is because I have seen it that much. I think the none repeat prints make my work unique as well as the use of colour which is sickly and clashing.”
Ms Healy’s collection includes dresses, raincoats, a pant suit, printed tights, bags and earrings.
Since the exposure of her work at Graduate Fashion Week, the former Teesdale School pupil has been contacted by River Island and Boden UK but has had to turn down interviews due to her scholarship which is due to start in September.
She added: “I would love to work for a print house that sells to places in the high street or work for a high street store, concentrating on print womenswear. I would love to have my own brand one day too.
“My work is so out there so for someone to want my collection to be sold in stores nationwide seems mad to me. Even now, I still can’t fully take it in. I’m really excited to see what happens next. Working with Tu will be an amazing experience.”
