Manxlife fashion
From Ramsey to Philli Wood is a rising star in the fashion world The Island has produced a host of young artistic talent over the years. The latest young star in the making is fashionista Philli Wood, a former Ramsey Grammar School and Isle of Man College pupil and recent graduate of the University of Westminster in London. Philli studied Fashion Design and took part in the annual British Fashion Council competition, where her stunning portfolio beat hundreds of other applicants and was snapped up by popular high-street brand ‘Warehouse’, who developed her garments into a full collection. Having just launched her ‘Philli Wood x’ capsule collection to coincide with London Fashion Week, Philli is now jetting off to Milan to start a placement at trendy Italian brand Max Mara. So Philli, you’re off to Milan! How are you feeling?! Very excited but quite nervous, because obviously I don’t speak any Italian and I don’t know anyone who lives there! What will you be working on out there? I’ll be assisting the Max Mara design team. They’re a massive company, so there are lots of sub-brands within Max Mara, but they generally specialise in outer-wear. The brand I will be working for is ‘Max Mara Weekend’. It’s all quite casual stuff with a heavy focus on outerwear. How did you get wind of this job? Really it was all through Uni. When I graduated Max Mara came to look at our portfolios and from
there I got an interview and now - almost a year later – they’ve asked me to come on board! Fantastic! So how was it being a student in a city like London? Was it a bit of a culture shock coming from the Isle of Man? It was quite a big culture shock! I think one of the biggest things was that we don’t really have a fashion industry on the Isle of Man and obviously in London there’s so much to see – so many museums and so much going on, and obviously with it being one of the capitals of the fashion industry there’s everything to do with fashion here, so it was a massive eye opener. Have you always had an interest in fashion? Was it born out of anything in particular? Well, I did A-Level Textiles and Art at Ramsey Grammar School I was always interested in that kind of thing, particularly textiles. But I didn’t really know an awful lot about fashion. Then went I went to the IOM College to do my Art Foundation Course I was introduced to fashion and decided that I thought it would be a great career path, as it’s a bit more focused. Art and Textiles are quite ‘up in the air’ whereas I liked the idea of having more of a focus. So did your course at the Isle of Man College provide you with a good stepping stone for your course at University? They were very supportive; to start with I did a broad range of everything, from fine art to pottery and glass making, which was great as it makes you be creative. At Westminster they liked you
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Hayley Richardson managed to catch her before she went… to go in not knowing an awful lot about fashion but to be creative, so that they can mould you into a fashion designer. I really enjoyed the college. How was your experience at the University of Westminster? It was really good as it allowed you to be really creative but at the same time they had a lot of tutor one-on-one time. The facilities – particularly the print facilities – were really good. I loved it there, it was great fun! Your graduate collection; what inspired the range? To start with it was the American Inuits. When I was in New York on a placement I went to a gallery, well, a museum really, all about American history, and there were these amazing parka jackets there, like the ones that Inuit people used to wear. So, that was the original inspiration; that almost shapeless design, cut really simply and the silhouette that it created. I was also looking into knitwear as I like the silhouette of over-sized knitwear, but then I didn’t want it to be too obviously knitwear so I decided to print the knit image onto fabric, giving the illusion of knitwear. It was all about scale; all of the prints are at different scales; the big parka jacket has got this massive print on it but then some of the dresses underneath have got quite an intricate cable knit on it. Colour palette was inspired by an artist called Dan Flavin. He’s an installation artist who uses fluorescent strip lights and that was why they’re really bright. Was he a fan of pink?! I thought the black and the pink combination looked really good together, but the artist himself
London to Milan uses loads of fluorescent colours. Actually, I got given this fabric by a company in Paris called Malia Kent, kind of a sponsorship really. The fabric had a loose weave and it was pink and orange, so I started with that. I loved that fabric so much that I matched everything with that! It is actually in the collection, but then printed on top of, so it’s less obvious. Did you have a lot of input in every stage of the production process for your Warehouse collection? I did actually, which was great. I started in design; we re-developed and re-designed my graduate collection. They helped me out a bit and had a bit of input, you know, “move that there, factories will take that there and read it like that” and I suppose that’s the bit I needed a bit of help with, as I didn’t know how to work with the factory. At uni I was my own factory! And then I worked with marketing and the PR company, so everything really! It was great to be really hands on with the photoshoot – that was a great day! Going and seeing it all, it was great just to see it finished, all there and on the model! The PR team talked me through who was going to have it and reasons why it would be good in certain places.
But it was really good – everything was ‘Philli’ themed! We had glittery croissants and pink macaroons! But because I was so busy I couldn’t really take it all in! I was just so in my own little world! I think I only had one canapé the whole day! It’s interesting what you said about instagram and people tweeting; is social media the way now, do you think, of spreading the word? Has it had a strong impact on your brand? Definitely, I feel like you can’t get by without using it now (although I’m actually terrrrible at using it!). You have to though, it’s just so quick, and so many people see it, so it’s like instant feedback. With all the shows and everything it used to be a much slower process, but now people are there with cameras and they can blog about things and instagram instantly, everything’s old news so much quicker, so you have to be really on it. It’s crazy; at Warehouse we have someone who JUST deals with instagram! It’s great though - my friend actually just texted me a picture of someone on the tube with a Philli Wood bag! I haven’t seen anyone with one yet though – I think it’ll be so weird! Do you know if your garments are selling well?! Yeh I think they are, they have a meeting about sales on a Monday morning and yeh, they are selling well. I think because the prices are high for an average Warehouse customer - as the quantities are small the prices have to be higher it’s always gonna be a slow seller, but I think for the BFC collection, which they do every year, it is actually selling really well. It would be the worse thing if it was like, “Philli has sold… zero, this week!”
How was the PR launch?! It was really good, it was a bit crazy! It was at the Argyle Street store (just off Oxford Street in London) and there were loads of bloggers and people like that, and with it being launched at the same time as London Fashion week it was great as it gave it a big hype. If any of the bloggers bought a piece of the collection and wore it to Fashion Week then it would get even more press. Then they’d be tweeting about it and instagraming. It was crazy though, I had all these different people coming up to me one after another…You when you’re like, I can’t smile anymore!
‘Get as much inspiration as possible. And save, hard!’
Do you think this particular theme and style will continue to infiltrate your designs? I think my stuff will always be sportswear influenced, and also have a lot of use of print in it. I definitely think that it will carry on down this sort of avenue, but I don’t know really; it’s my first collection, we will see what happens next! What fashion designers do you particularly like? In London I love Burberry Prorsum (it’s the Burberry catwalk range) and Proenza Schouler,
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How difficult is it for new designers to break into the fashion industry?
who are based in New York. I actually interned for both of these companies. Bit bias really, aren’t I?! So you got to do an internship in New York?! How was that? So much fun! I spent 4 months in New York, it was so good! With my course I had a sandwich year so half of it was spent with Burberry, which I loved, and 4 months of it was spent with Proenza. Other designers I like – Kenzo, big fan of Kenzo. Alexander Wang… How would you describe the ‘Philli Wood’ brand? What’s your trademark?
If you could have any model showcase your range, who would you choose?
Definitely loud prints, quite over-sized and sporty. That’s actually one of things I like about a lot of your garments - their style is generally quite ‘over-sized’ and can be worn by anybody, regardless of their body shape.
That’s hard! It’d have to be someone who was not super skinny – the girl in fact who did my photo-shoot for the Warehouse collection, she was really cool, she’s called Charlotte Carey, and although she is really petite, she is just really cool looking and I like models that just look a bit different. If I could think of ANY model who could wear it, maybe someone like Jordan Dunn.
Was this a style you chose for any particular reason? It’s mainly to do with the shapes and I like how the collection’s quite fun, not too serious. I love the combination of over-sized silhouettes and print, that’s what I really like. Also, I’m not someone who likes to wear really fitted clothes so maybe that’s to do with it as well, it’s just not my style so I don’t design like that. What’s your opinion on these ‘super skinny’ catwalk models? I probably shouldn’t say my thoughts on it! I think it’s awful that these girls starve themselves just for that one minute they walk down a runway. But I do think that those particular clothes probably look best on tall, slim girls – not anorexically skinny though! It’s so hard, that whole size zero model debate, because that’s not a normal shape, so people want what is not the norm – that’s
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why people think “Oh my god she looks incredible”, because she looks so different to the average person. I don’t know if it’s ever really going to change. It’s getting better, I don’t know if they can allow girls to be that thin anymore, and that’s good because if they look ill, you concentrate more on the girls rather than the clothes, and that’s never what you want! I see my clothes on a strong, powerful girl, she is tall but she’s strong and she can hold them. I would never see my clothes on a super skinny model.
What store would you love to have your clothes in? Well it would be great to have it somewhere like Selfridges. As for a brand I’d love to work with an outerwear company, someone like Kenzo would be amazing. I think they definitely influence my work; the stuff that I do is not a million miles away from the kind of things they do. Burberry would be great, a bit different from Kenzo, but either of them would be great. Definitely an outerwear company. In your opinion, what makes a strong ‘brand’? I think, a very definite idea for who the customer is, something that’s a little bit different, that has something about it!
Very, very difficult! It’s just having the money! No one has the money, because we come out of Uni and you’ve just made your final collection which costs hundreds of thousands of pounds and then no one has any money to do anything. You don’t get paid particularly well in fashion anyway, unless you’ve got a sponsor. So a lot of people, myself included, work, get experience and earn money to put into doing my own thing. Otherwise it’s pretty hard! I don’t think I could have done it without the help and support of the Isle of Man Government because all the materials that we had to buy we had to buy absolutely on our own, we had no help or support from the Uni. If they hadn’t have paid my fees I couldn’t have done it, as Manx students can’t get student loans. I actually think that Manx students now will struggle to do fashion design degrees, or creative degrees in general, because of the money you need for materials. Even though my course was 9-5 minimum (we often worked through the night) I still had a separate job as a waitress to get by, because you couldn’t otherwise. Everyone’s in the same boat, because you have all this competition around you and if you want to get a job at the end of it and you want to be one of the best graduates from your University you have to spend the money. What advice would you offer to any students currently on the Island wishing to study fashion? I’d say, immerse yourself in all types of inspiration, museums, exhibitions, blogs, magazines, anything. Just get as much inspiration as possible. And save, hard! Can people from the Island purchase your garments?! Yes, you can purchase on Warehouse.co.uk!
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