AN UPCOMING British Asian designer whose clothes have sold out at Harrods and Selfridges is set to dress the Duchess of Cambridge.
It was at her old university, De Montfort in Leicester, that London-based Shivani Chavda met the Queen and the Duchess at the start of the monarch’s Diamond Jubilee tour.
Chavda, 24, said: “Kate (Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge) was really interested in the prints; she told me she loved them and asked me if I draw them myself.
“She said she really liked the dress and I said,‘I’ll make you one’.”
“Anything she wears is sold out everywhere within hours. She’s tall and quite slim so it will be an elegant evening dress. She likes a lot of vivid colours, which bodes well for me. Deep shades of purples will look nice on her.”
Chavda’s designs have been sold at Warehouse, Harrods and Selfridges. She got her graduate collection in the stores after winning the British Fashion Council’s Warehouse Design competition.
She said: “I spend a lot of hours on drawings, paintings, reworking my own drawings and taking inspiration from photography.
“That’s something quite rare; people don’t spend hours and hours on prints. They usually take an image, edit it on Photoshop and make digital prints. I draw everything myself and work on the stand a lot.
“That differs from cutting flat as then you are more conscious of the fabrics and how the final garment is going to fit on the person.”
* This is an abridged version of the story that appeared in the Eastern Eye edition dated June 15
