Sophie Natalie Wager

Fashion Design - BA (Hons)

I am an aspiring womenswear and print designer based in Cambridgeshire. I use fun and colourful prints and hand craft textiles to explore narrative and story in a way that blends fashion and my love of costuming to create bold and dynamic collections.

I often draw inspiration from my passion for pop culture, music, and my personal life experiences to explore narrative and bring awareness to issues and topics personal to me. I believe that what we wear is an extension of our self and our stories and that design should reflect that.

I love to learn and am aways looking at new textile techniques to incorporate into my designs, from construction methods such as weaving and knitting to surface techniques such as printing, dying and embroidery. I’m always looking for new ways to add detail to my designs.

Collection Concept

My graduate collection is called “foureyes”, it is a spring/Summer 2024 womenswear collection that in inspired by my personal experience with childhood bullying from the age of 6-18, and how teaching staff at my school victim blaming me had a lasting effect on me both at the time and later in life.

Visually the collection takes inspiration from 1970s children’s fashion and reimagines it for the adult body. It used bright colours and print to emphasis childishness while using free hand couching to hide its true message in its fun and outgoing appearance.

The print features a repetitive eye motif that is inspired by my insecurities around my eyes as someone who was bullied for wearing glasses, with text embroidered on top using couching. When viewed with a red filter or light the background print is no longer visible and all that can be seen is the text.

The text consists of a combination on things said to me by teaching staff as well as things I said to family because of these comments intended to bring awareness to how it’s not just the actual bullying that effects victims, but also how the bullying in dealt with by trusted adults.