ME AND MY FASHION DREAM

Ever since I was a small child, I can remember looking for scraps of fabrics in my grandmas’ boxes so I can make dresses for my dolls. My mum was also an avid sewer, I can still feel the scratches from pins whilst trying on the latest dungarees. Scissors and pins spread across the kitchen table as my siblings, and I line up to get fitted. A few years later my family and I emigrated to Australia from Malta. I travelled back to Malta with my mum several times. My sewing machine always travelled with me; I just could not do without it.

Years later I met my husband to be and after several moves which always included packing up a whole sewing room, we started a family whilst living in London. We then moved back to my hometown of Malta. This beautiful Mediterranean island with its warm climate and sun trenching days is what inspired me to start a fashion label Linen and Silk by Natash.

As long as I can remember starting up a fashion label is what I always desired to achieve and although a few years later, seeing this materialising is a great accomplishment. Having lived and travelled extensively my roots in fashion started long before I started my textile classes way back in school. Dressing up in fancy shoes and making my first made to measure clothes at the tender age of 14years whilst living in Australia has led me to study fashion design and work in this industry. I was never fond of throw away fashion. I rather spend a bit more and buy clothes to last or clothes I can wear time and time again, in fact while studying fashion design at university I just could not understand the number of seasons you would have ot design for! I work with natural fabrics when it comes to designing for my collection of garments which I call seasonless. I have designed a Cardi silk jacket which one is able to order in different colours of silk. I love working with such sustainable fabric and I even use silk lining. The lightness of this jacket is a reminder of those hot days in the Mediterranean. I create silk blouses, dresses, and linen tops and as I still yet t0 lunch my creations are in the process.

As part of sharing my skills I am looking to start workshops and in September I will be starting afterschool clubs at my sons’ school for age 9-, 10- and 11-year-olds. It is going to be an interesting journey as apart from teaching my son I have not taught a class of kids how to sew but it’s such a good skill to have and I know there are some kids already looking forward to it. I have run workshops at fashion colleges and enjoyed this so much that I would love to continue with sharing my knowledge of garment construction. With sustainability and second-hand clothing becoming such a game changer in fashion I think we can all agree that changes are becoming inevitable in the fashion world. A pair of scissors can come a long way!..re-styling and altering clothes are not just for the professional but also for the amateur sewer who wants to try their skill at revamping an old pair of jeans. I have done so to several pairs, but I cannot forget the time my oldest son gave me a pair of his overly worn jeans to repair. I mean well torn!! but I found some old denim under my cutting table and patched up the hole by using a small zig zag stitch. To my amazement it worked and they have been worn . I think I injected a few more years of life into them.

I want my small business to revolve around Creat.Make.Repair.Sell. In a world of overconsumption, I am glad I have found a niche market for my clothing range. It is going to take a few years to get it off the ground but really seeing that I now have turned 50 I must get on with it!