Marina wearing Holly’s creation on Loose Women. Watch the segment on YouTube.
Holly’s in fashion
3 May 2010
Second pop star spotted in MMU graduate’s designs
It would appear that MMU Fashion graduate Holly Russell’s celebrity following is growing by the day.
Just months after eccentric pop star Lady Gaga was spotted at a major awards ceremony in an outfit designed by the talented 23-year old, pop newcomer Marina and the Diamonds has been singing Holly’s praises on ITV show Loose Women.
Marina wore a beautiful long-sleeved sequinned top with iridescent shoulder pieces from Holly’s 2009 graduate collection on the lunchtime programme last week, which immediately attracted the attention of the show’s presenters.
Coleen Nolan and Lesley Garrett could barely keep their hands off the creation, while host Andrea McLean described the starlet as “jingling beautifully”.
“So clever”
The songstress warned the audience not to “freak out” when she revealed the embellishments were individually sewn on jewel beetle wings and quickly reassured them that the wings were a by-product of the food industry in the Far East rather than produced specifically for the collection.
Marina gushed: “It’s beautiful. Holly’s so clever as she takes natural resources – minerals and different elements from nature - and fuses them with fashion.”
Growing press attention
Despite the high-profile attention Holly’s “avant garde approach to fabrications” (Vogue.com) has attracted since her graduation with First Class Honours last summer, the London-born designer is keeping her feet firmly on the ground.
She says: “I’m under no illusion that just because I have received press attention from this collection that I am now ready to start my own label. So many young designers do this and fail because they don’t understand how a business functions and I don’t want to do the same.
“In the future I would like to set up my own label, but for now I need industry experience to help me understand how these fashion houses work so that when the time comes I know what I’m getting myself into.”
Holly is currently working alongside renowned designer Gareth Pugh and hopes to undertake an MA at either the Royal College of Art or Central Saint Martins in the autumn.
