Sadie Williams A/W’15: Ikebana Collection

Sadie Williams is a Fashion and Textile Designer, born and based in London. Often mixing odd combinations of juxtaposing influences together to create modern and playful work, she developed and refined her design aesthetic on the Central Saint Martins MA Fashion course. She graduated in 2013 with a Distinction for her work on the ‘Textiles For Fashion’ pathway, and currently works freelance for companies wanting to capitalise on her strength in innovating fashion-aware textile and print design. She has worked with J W Anderson, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Katie Hillier and fashion stylists.

She went on to become one of Selfridges ‘Bright Young Things’ 2013, where she sold a range of “playful and utterly desirable” embossed mini-dresses and lurex-print sweatshirts. A selection of her ‘Totemic’ MA collection dresses were on display in her own Selfridges window on Oxford Street. Her ‘Totemic’ gowns were displayed alongside Raf Simons for Dior, Prada and Rick Owens in the ‘Fashion’ category for ‘Designs Of The Year 2014’ exhibition at the Design Museum in London. She has been listed by Grazia and Vogue as ‘one-to-watch’ and her work has been photographed for numerous fashion publications and exhibited in London and Holland.

She joined designers such as Fred Butler, Louise Gray, Sibling, Nasir Mazhar and Stephen Jones in designing a collection for Barbie, launching her AW/14 collection of miniature gowns during London Fashion Week. These one-off exclusive dresses were made from a new shimmering textile Sadie innovated. Her gang of ‘ultra princessy tomboys’ have been captured disco dancing in a stop-frame animation, created with her brother Joe.

November 2014 saw the launch of her co-lab capsule collection designed for Swedish high-street label &Other Stories, sold internationally in-store and online. This ‘fast & folksy’ multi-textile collection demonstrated a translation of Sadie’s youthful, sporty, feminine sensibility into something highly commercially viable. She showcased her small ‘Ikebana’ AW15 collection as an installation space at the Newgen space at Somerset House this London Fashion Week and as a ‘Preview Designer’ at The London Showrooms at Paris Fashion Week (Feb 2015).

Melanie Stockman

Sadie works free-lance for fashion companies, and recently gained NEWGEN sponsorship, supporting her to continue working under her own label. Click here to visit the website.