Last year we had the privilege of getting to know Kristyna Toms while she interned with us. Kristyna studied a BA in Fashion Design and Business Studies at Brighton University and during her sandwich year we were lucky enough to have her help us in our store and design studio.

Due to the summer lockdown, Kristyna’s final collection was not able to be fully appreciated, so we thought it would be interesting to share images and an interview with you. We hope you will find this inspiring. 

Tell us about your yourself and your studies?

Before finishing college in Czech Republic, I found that fashion design and sewing was my passion. I had always liked the idea of living in the UK, my college in Prague was under British curriculum so I thought it would make acclimatising into the culture easier and I have always been attracted to British fashion brands. I applied to study in the UK and ended up going to the University of Brighton –  their course programme was very hands on but at the same time teaches the business side of fashion, which is really useful for young designers.  

I am proud to say that during my studies I developed some strong design and technical skills, my endless patience proved to be a good plus when I found out I wanted to specialise in tailoring and let details dominate my creations. 

I enjoyed my time at university, but I mainly appreciated being exposed to industry during my internship year. I believe this really shaped me as a person and a designer, working with Dashing Tweeds was the most valuable experience from that whole year! 

Tell us about your collection?

The collection named ‘Eastern Bloc’ is an exploration of the Czechoslovak culture when it was under the Communist regime in the late 1970s – all essential goods including fabrics and clothing were scarce and designers were required to find inventive ways to make clothes out of the little available. They managed to do so in an unconventional way, over-exaggerating trends from outside of the Eastern Bloc, always combining patterned and textured fabrics which were produced by the local and at the time famous textile industry. 

Overall, the late 1970s was a very monotone period in the country, characterised by the grey eroding stone walls of the capital Prague juxtaposed with the bright, uniform colour palette of beige, green, brown, blue and red of the people’s fashion, this perfectly depicted the mood back then – sad and humble. Sourcing inspiration from authentic Czechoslovak fashion magazines, I designed a tailored collection where the key features included modularity, uniformity, functionality and high attention to detail, with elements having been exaggerated in its amount and proportion. 

Tell us about the cloth you used?

I sourced fabrics both the Czech Republic and the UK, they were both authentic looking and vibrant such as Gibbous and Hudson from Dashing Tweeds, and styling it with my personal approach resulted in a collection which reflects both the beautiful and the ugly of totalitarianism.

I am really interested in sustainable materials and manufacturing and so I was trying to source my fabrics with as much of a sustainable approach as possible, partially using dead stock materials or natural materials which are responsibly made. I love Dashing Tweeds fabrics for their high quality, I know they are responsibly manufactured and where the yarns come from.

I love the Dashing Tweeds fabrics because they are distinctive in the textiles market, different from other woollen and suiting offerings. Within the UK I find it really hard to find colourful and patterned suiting fabrics. The Dashing Tweeds I chose perfectly fitted in with the theme of 1970s Czechoslovakia of my graduate collection!

What do you plan to do next?

Now after graduating the whole fashion industry has slowed down due to the pandemic so I have decided to focus on experimenting a bit more with my aesthetics, I’m also now interested to explore textile design and manufacture. For the moment I am based in Prague, and in the coming months I am planning to collaborate with my artistic friends here who create different branches of the arts. We have such a big tradition of crafts and at the moment there are so many talented young designers who are exploring them; I’m excited to work on projects with those from my close circle.

We hope you enjoyed learning more about Kristyna’s collection. To find out more or ask any questions, do get in contact with her; kristyna.toms@outlook.cz or follow her instagram account; @kristynatoms_.

Also to let you know our retail store is now closed due to UK Government guidelines, but our online store is still processing orders daily and we are offering free shipping on all website orders during lockdown.