The Bite Magazine Issue 17

bite fashion I t’s amazing when designers are able to express the creative visions behind their brand or collection and you just immediately grasp the concept or inspiration of their work. When I first discovered new made-to-order eveningwear brand CC Couture, I fell in love with the style as I absolutely love lace, sheer materials and intricate detail- ing. Some of the first things I noticed about emerging designer Claudia Croaz- zo’s SS16 collection was that it is very feminine with embellished lace that is revealing yet sophisticated and also risqué and sexy but not provocative or crude with simple elegant colours and cuts as well as intricate embellishments. With such high attention to detail, it gives a fantastic example of how well a designer can achieve their design goals. Claudia’s desire is to create clothes that make women feel sexy, sophisticated and feminine, and she considers this ethos to be the design signature of her brand along with the use of lace, a signature material which she uses in a variety of ways each season. She also loves working with silk because she believes it is much easier to make shapes soft and feminine when using these two delicate fabrics, and describes herself as someone who is “not shy of creating a revealing garment but still keeping it classy”. Claudia believes what makes a quality item of clothing is the intricate finishing details.You have to admit there’s a strong resemblance in phrasing, and I think it’s wonderful that such a young designer can already realise their designs so skillfully. CC Couture and its soft yet sexy fem- inine designs are gaining popularity quickly. Considering Claudia only grad- uated from the University of Salford in 2014 and then spent over a year gaining experience in the fashion industry before creating CC Couture, it’s abso- lutely astonishing how much success she has had in such a short space of time and the following her brand has gained. It’s not really that surprising when you look at the quality of her work, but it’s an amazing feat nonetheless. Earlier this year when Lizzie Cundy wore one of her dresses, a gorgeous floor-length gown made of sheer silver lace with beautiful dark grey embellishments in all the right places, long sleeves and an elegant high neck, to the Asian Awards - the critical reception was overwhelmingly positive. The television presenter (known best for her red carpet reports for ITV) is an avid supporter of the brand and has since been pictured several times wearing different designs. The brand’s proudest moment so far was back in September when it previewed its AW16 collection at the Closing Party for London Fashion Week. More recently, CC Couture has been featured in the UK editions of Elle and Vogue magazines and another TV personality; model Char- lotte Dawson wore one of her gowns, an equally gorgeous dress in sheer sparkly nude with black detailing and a halter neck, to the EMA awards. Claudia is a big fan of Margot Robbie ( The Wolf of Wall Street, Suicide Squad ) and has a dream of one day designing a dress for her to wear on the red carpet. She really respects the talent and humble personality of the young Australian actress and thinks her look would be perfect for CC Couture. With the speed this emerging designer is rising in the fashion world and from what I’ve seen of her drive and ability to get what she wants, I wouldn’t be sur- prised if that dream isn’t too far from being fulfilled. Her quick rise to fame wasn’t down to sheer luck of course, nor solely to her natural talent. Claudia doesn’t remember exactly when her love of fashion began as she’s always been creative and loved creating new looks (she cites designers Elle Saab, Giovanni Valentino and Pierre Balmain as her main style influences), but her path to becoming a designer could be said to roughly begin after her GCSEs. Her favourite subject was of course art, and her final piece fea- tured painted clothing and shoes, after which she continued her education at Blackburn College to formally pursue a career in fashion. It was here she made her first dress entirely out of tissue, card and paper and graduated with a BTEC diploma and foundation course in Fashion Design.This led to her placement at the University of Salford where she eventually graduated with a degree in Fashion Design. In her first year she learnt fashion design, styling and photography before settling on fashion design in her second, and in her third year, focused a lot of effort into securing placements and over the course of the year managed to get four intern- ships with three well-known brands. She attributes her love of embellishment to her first internship of which she spent six weeks working at Tata Naka during the summer and enjoyed hand embellishing many of their products. She interned at AshleyWilliams straight after this before going back to university to learn more about retail within the fashion industry on a larger scale. During this period, she decided to take on two separate weeks of work experi- ence at the Ted Baker head office, one over Christmas and the other straight after graduation. It was after this that she began her career working as a freelance designer for a short time before accept- ing a design assistant position at Jacques Vert. She’d always planned to start her own brand as soon as possible, however because she loves pushing the boundaries of materials, she didn’t want her designs to have to get passed through supervi- sors and continually toned down to fit in with the brand’s image. Claudia has worked tirelessly to get Vivi Callanan looks at Claudia Croazzo’s amazing CC Couture AW16 collection and discovers her desire for creating sexy-worthy dresses.