Emerging Fervour

Emily Bosence studied at the Chelsea College of Art and Design focused on recycled textiles.
Before she started her own label oops!, she worked for Red Mutha. oops! fashion recently celebrated its first birthday.

Your style reminds of the late 80ies Hip Hop fashion. I remember for instance, Salt n Pepa used to wear those hats with African prints on it. So, where does your inspiration come from?

oops fashion: A mixture of things, mainly vintage streetwear. Old hiphop videos, rave footage, video games, stupid 80s films with futuristic street punks and gangs, comic books… anything and everything!

You are using vintage fabrics for your capes and they are designed to be multifunctional.
So your clothing is both ecological and efficient. Coincidence or philosophy?

oops fashion: I specialised in recycled textiles and eco fashion so it’s really important to me to recycle as much as possible and to create high quality garments that people will not get bored of.
However, the design is most important and I do not use the fact that I recycle as a selling point as I also use a lot of new fabrics and 99% of people will always buy clothes purely based on what they look like.

Let’s look ahead. What are your plans for the future? What is your dream for oops! fashion?

oops fashion: At the moment I do everything myself including all of the production which can be really hard but I’m nearly at the stage where I can employ people to manufacture my designs which is going to be great as I can spend more time designing which is what I love. In 5 years time I expect to be working on a very different level, I feel like I have achieved a lot since I set up in November and intend to continue to do so!

A few words about your collaboration with Gaggle. How did it happen?

oops fashion: Deborah Coughlin who started up Gaggle saw my clothes on myspace and emailed me about her idea for Gaggle at the start of the year. I went and met her at her pub and I loved Deborah’s Gaggle plans and after plenty of banter and booze on several occasions we agreed on a design. The Gaggle gown is based on my reversible capes, the basic shape is very similar but they are dresses and the hoods are a lot larger. I LOVE seeing them live - 20 women singing, shouting and screeching, allwearing possibly the biggest, larey-est pieces I’ve ever made – it’s quite a sight!!

I guess it’s pretty exciting to see people wearing your designs. Can you remember the first time you saw someone on the street, wearing something you’ve made? How did it feel?

oops fashion: Great! I’m quite an excitable person and always pounce on people that I see wearing my stuff. I remember a few years back being at a festival, and a girl walked past wearing a cap I’d made and I kept shouting at her ‘I MADE YOUR HAT’ She didn’t believe me and clearly thought I was mental and walked off quickly…. She probably never wore it again !! Yeah I’m not very good at being cool.

Final question: What is your advise for a young designer who wants to set up a fashion label?

oops fashion: Umm, I think fresh ideas and good quality fabrics and manufacturing are of most importance, then it just boils down to working really hard, having confidence and grabbing every opportunity you can.