Aesthetically Ever After: paris hawkins-carr

As we promised we planned to track down the brilliant designer Paris Hawkins Carr. Here at Aesthetically Ever After we did just that! We had the pleasure of viewing her designs at the wonderful Graduate Fashion Week Event in London and just wanted to share with you all a star in the making...

Paris was born in December 1989 in Essex. She attended the Southend School for Girls for her secondary education and her A-levels.

After finishing her A-levels, Paris secured a place at Birmingham University to study Fashion Design. During her time here she undertook a work placement at Todd Lynn where she gained a priceless insight into the fashion industry.

Through perseverance and hard work, Paris was lucky enough to design six outfits, make three of them and have a panel of judges decide on whether she would be aable to showcaes at GFW 2011. She found herself in the final 12 of 46 students who were give this fabulous opportunity.

This is what Paris had to say when we caught up with her...

AEA: Do you feel your formal fashion education at Birmingham University helped prepare you for working in the industry?

PHC: Definitely. To be a good designer I believe you need to be able to make what you want to design to know that what you are putting down on paper is realistic. In that sense the technicality of pattern cutting and sewing you need to be taught. But also being poked in the right direction design wise by tutors is always helpful.

AEA: If you weren’t a designer what would you be?

PHC: I originally geared my A levels up to be a doctor. To be honest I would still love to pursue that career if the fashion industry did not work out!

AEA:What one piece of advice would you give to someone wanting to start a career in fashion?

PHC: I think you need to live, breathe and eat fashion, and certainly know what part of fashion you want to go into. Styling, retail management, design or garment technology for example. Design is a massive undertaking and so you need to know that that is what you are interested in before pursuing it as a career. There are a lot of people that realise they prefer the management side of fashion like buying, merchandising etc so my advice is research thoroughly first and maybe try and get some experience.

AEA: Where do you get your design inspiration?

PHC: I get it from anything and everything. As a designer I take inspiration from art, music and general popular culture and interpret it into clothing. I am most interested in people’s reaction to things that happen. My most recent inspiration was from the idea of death being about more the emotions of the living and the coping mechanisms when dealing with death. It went on to explore the idea that when a person is laid to rest their soul can be seen in transition between life and death in the form of the bird. Thus I literally showed the birds ripping away from the body.

AEA:What is the best perk in being a designer?

PHC: The most rewarding thing about being a designer, at this stage, is seeing my work in the catwalk in front of an audience. I have worked 8am-8pm for at least six months on my final collection and to see it out there being received by people and sparking a reaction is so amazing!

AEA: What is the most difficult aspect of running your own label versus i.e. design, production, sales, finance and advertising?

PHC: To be honest, on a personal level I would not know. My next step is, to hopefully, get a job in large high end designers and learn the different aspects of running a label. I did a placement with a designer called Todd Lynn over the summer and it was really interesting seeing his different challenges as a small up and coming label. I think with any business the financial side of things is extremely difficult, as a designer designing comes naturally but to confine that with money restrictions and to publicise and get the right amount of sales is extremely difficult and is probably why fashion is such a hard industry.

AEA: What do you wish people would understand about working in the fashion industry?

PHC: I think when I say I do fashion people think that I just go to fun parties. That’s really not the case I think the only reason people get that impression is that designers have to work so hard that when they do party they part hard!

AEA: What trends do you see being big for 2011 and 2012?

PHC: I’m not sure to be honest. As a designer I work in my own little bubble and present my designs to the world I don’t really manage to keep an eye on trends.

AEA: Who is your style icon?

PHC: Erm…. I don’t really know to be honest. I love Alexa Chung’s style but I love looking on blogs like face hunter for cool style ideas.

AEA: Where do you love to shop?

PHC: I do like Topshop however I like to mix it with vintage and second hand stuff. There is an amazing £2 stall in Birmingham Rag Market that sells the coolest stuff.

AEA: What your favourite item of clothing?

PHC: This jacket my boyfriends mum gave me from the 80’s.

AEA: What’s your mantra?

PHC: Fuck it. What will happen will happen.

AEA: What’s next for Paris Hawkins-Carr?

PHC: Hopefully move to London. Live the dream. Work for a high end fashion label.

We believe that this bright young star is going to be reaching unbelieveable heights in her fashion career. She speaks with passion, integrity and desire. Remember where you heard about her first.

To see more of Paris Hawkins-Carr you can go to http://parishawkins.blogspot.com/

It's all about the fashion, love AEA x x

Graduate Fashion Week was launched in 1991 and is a forum to showcase the very best BA Graduate fashion design talent in the UK.

I was selected with 22 other graduates from the Academy of Freelance Makeup (AOFM) to work backstage at GFW. We were sponsored by Rimmel London and were making up the very best models in the industry from agencies such as Storm, Select, Premier, ING, Ford and lots more. I felt very privileged and was buzzing to get started on day 1.

The event was held at Earls Court, London and rest of the AOFM team and I had a 7.45am call time... This was going to be hard for someone like me who loves their bed. However, I literally leapt out of bed on Sunday morning, enthused for what the day may bring.

As I thought as it was going to be long and demanding few days I would keep my own make up clean and simple. MAC Prep and prime skin, MAC Studio Fix Fluid, MAC Mineralize Skinfinish, MAC Raisin Powder Blush, MAC Eyeliner in Boot Black, MAC Eye Kohl in Smoulder and two coats of YSL Mascara. As you can probably tell I love MAC ha! Well I work for them but that is another story and another blog...

So day 1 we had 3 shows for 3 different universities- East London, Edinburgh and Salford. The brief for all of them were pretty natural... see image below. So using Rimmel London Match Perfection Foundation and Rimmel London Lasting Finish 25 Hour Foundation, we were able to create a flawless finish that was either matte or dewy and creamy.

By day 2, some of the universities requested that the models for their show have a strong, sexy and defined red or berry statement-Bristol, Bath and Birmingham. I was thrilled to do this as two things I class myself to have OCD about being a makeup artist is creating a perfect red lip and defining eyebrows...Eeeeekkkkk I’m getting excited just thinking about it. Using the Rimmel Lasting Finish 1000 kisses stay on lip contouring pencil in 021 Red Dynamite, we created a super slick, defined and kissable mouth. I filled in my models lips with Red Diva lipstick or Berry Fever.

Bath University (below) opted for a spin off 60’s feel to their makeup. White eye kohl in the waterline, lashings of mascara- Rimmel Glam’ Eyes Day 2 Night.

Continuing into day 3 the adrenaline was pumping backstage and it was empowering to work with a team of dedicated, creative and passionate individuals. A massive shout out is to the amazing L’oreal Session Styling Team who used Techni- Arts products. They created some absolutely fabulous high fashion hair styles. Not to mention they were all lovely and just as keen as us makeup artists to showcase their art.

I definitely underestimated the talent I was going to see and be working with at Graduate Fashion Week. These graduates are outstanding and deserve the recognition they gained at the glamorous event. They are definitely the future and I actually cannot wait to do next year.

I have two designers which have stuck in my head and I was blown away by. Now they may not be every ones cup of tea but equally you have to applaud their creativity and out-the-box thinking.

Paris Hawkins-Carr- Birmingham University

Isla Skelton- Birmingham University

I’m going to track down these two designers and get some more information about the inspiration behind the designs, favourite designers and life after graduate fashion week... Please stay tuned.