From Hiding Behind Black to Designing in Full Colour: My Journey to Help You Create Clothes You Love.

I didn't choose fashion because of glossy magazines or runway shows. I chose it because I watched my mum - a woman with MS who used a wheelchair - struggle to dress herself and avoid mirrors. Yet she had an appreciation for fashion that never wavered. She once commissioned a buttery leather coat from a tailor in Greece. My Nan made her wedding dress. Her carer, who once worked in an upholstery factory, taught me to sew.

Even as a child, I understood something powerful: clothes weren't just fabric. They were confidence, identity, and self-expression stitched together.

As a kid, I dreamed of curing MS. But my natural talents pointed elsewhere—toward solving wardrobe problems, not medical ones.

When My Body Became the Problem

At 16, I was diagnosed with scoliosis. A 50-degree curvature of the spine. After years of school bullying, this diagnosis didn't exactly boost my confidence. Pilates helped—I reduced my curve by 2 degrees before my hips fused—but I was left with a 48-degree curve that robbed me of my destined 5'10" height. I stand at 5'7" (and shrinking), with posture that continues to shift to this day.

My body didn't fit the mould. But neither did my dreams.

Fashion School

When my mum died, I was drowning in grief. My small Welsh school couldn't guide me beyond the basics, so my fashion portfolio was cobbled together from pre-made sewing patterns and questionable sketches. But my final project - exploring 'isolation' by making the same garment repeatedly, changing one textile element each time - earned me a distinction and a place at university.

Fashion school exploded my world into colour and life. I fell in love with the entire process. I formed friendships for life. I learned that community fuels creativity.

But I still wore black. My confidence in my work grew, but my confidence in myself stayed hidden behind blacks and greys. I was afraid to be seen. Afraid to be bullied again. Afraid to apply my skills to my own happiness and identity.

The Fashion Industry

Then came the fashion industry.

At a couture house, I hand-embellished Swarovski crystals and beads. I was even drafted as a fit model - until a corset revealed my scoliosis. I lost the position. My body didn't meet the standard.

I'd written my dissertation on "How Do Fashion and Societies Ideologies of Beauty Fail Those Who are Physically Disabled." But I started to realise: it failed everyone.

I watched 10 interns spend six months embellishing a custom wedding gown, only for one accidental iron burn to destroy it all. Months of work, discarded. This was my first real glimpse into how wasteful fashion could be.

I moved through Calvin Klein, AllSaints, and a dodgy streetwear company where the creative director told me I had "the shoulders of a man." Burnt out, cash poor, and falling out of love with an industry that promised creative escapism, I left.

The Choice

Back in Cardiff with little money left, I faced a choice: secure a stable job and leave fashion behind, or hire a studio and risk everything for one last shot at doing something meaningful with clothes.

Much to the horror of my financial advisor father (who called Burberry "Blueberry" and Tommy Hilfiger "Tommy Finger" - I love you, Dad!), I chose the studio.

Building Something Better

I started my own fashion brand, determined to do it right. I wanted customers to reconnect with their clothing. So I created 'Journey Cards' - swing tickets detailing every person involved in each garment's creation, from the farmer who grew the crop to the weaver who spun the textile.

Back in 2016, in Cardiff especially, this hadn't been done before. My business grew.

But scale brought problems I couldn't solve. Transparent supply chains became harder to track. Worse, there was no guarantee customers would even read the card.

So I flipped my business model: charge fast fashion prices for luxury designs, but ask customers to make it themselves. True reconnection. True customisation. Sustainability solved.

Digital Pattern Library was born.

A New Life Unfolds

I met a handsome farmer (seriously, Love Island won't stop calling him) and moved from my hired studio to a custom-built space next to a cow shed. The sewing industry was different. My lifestyle married the fast pace of fashion - which my ADHD loves - with the slow pace of the countryside.

I fell back in love with riding horses. The veil lifted on how all-consuming the industry had been. My life became peppered with influences and excitement I could bring to my clothing.

I was welcomed into an online community of sewists and creatives who shared a passion for learning, new skills, and feeling great in the clothes they create.

The Missing Piece

But for all the wonderful, colourful makes they wore (and I was jealous of), I noticed their confidence lacked elsewhere. They doubted their skills to design their own clothes. They relied on pre-existing sewing patterns - like mine. They were still beholden to someone else's vision and aesthetic.

I thought: who better to design for the wearer than the wearer themselves?

And I could teach them. What I didn’t realise, is that they would also teach me.

The DPL Atelier

What started with the 3 Day Design Challenge led onto The DPL Atelier. Today, a beautiful journey takes place.

Not only have I relinquished the blacks and greys in my wardrobe - inspired by my creative community to step into my true aesthetic - but I've shared actionable, easy industry techniques for my community to become the professional designers of their own wardrobes.

My mum's buttery Greek leather coat? I've repurposed it into my own garments. I fix collars on my dad's jackets. I use transferrable skills to not only extend the life of our clothes but do so with sentimentality stitched into the seams. Inside The Atelier, there are even lessons for adapting patterns for wheelchair use - because the girl who once watched her mum struggle to dress never forgot.

I spent years hiding my body, my confidence, and my identity behind safe choices and other people's standards. I know what it's like to feel like your body doesn't fit the mould. I know what it's like to doubt your skills, your vision, and your right to take up space.

But I also know what it feels like to step into colour, creativity, and confidence - and to help others do the same.

That's why I created The DPL Atelier. Not just to teach you to sew. But to teach you to design for yourself. To trust your vision. To create clothes that make you feel like the best version of you.

Because you deserve to feel great in the clothes you create. And you deserve to be the designer of your own dream wardrobe.

Stay safe, keep creative and I'll catch you on the flipside x