TADO collaboration

Time flies. This time last year, I was finishing off my Diploma in Creative Pattern Cutting.

I really enjoyed the final major project, I managed to secure myself a collaboration with the world famous illustrators TADO. I met Mike and Katie at a Sheffield party and told them about the course and my interests. The next day, I doodled a few outfits and sheepishly emailed them with a proposal about a potential collaboration… a few days later, I got an email saying they were extremely interested and designed a repeat print for me. Lesson learnt - you don't ask, you don't get!

Sketch and proposal I sent to TADO

TADO have worked for some big brands such as Gola, MTV and Vodafone. I was so excited about working with them, we emailed back and forth with garment ideas and prints ideas for a few weeks before finally settling on a final print and style for the collection. 

The concept of the project was heavily inspired by one of our tutors, a bespoke tailor who worked on Saville Row, Karl Matthews. He was infectious with his talks and I wanted to combine the playfulness of TADO with the accuracy and precision used in tailoring. It just seemed like a waste not to utilise his skills during my short time at the college. 

I ended up making three outfits from the line up. Standard blood, sweat and tears went into the making process. I was really happy with the end result, I mixed the TADO print with gingham fabric, added a few studs and got a couple of t-shirts printed up to finish off the collection.

There was a fashion show with the college but the images didn't turn out very well so here I am taking selfies. I should organise a photoshoot for these outfits...