A fashion designer from Heswall has created a luxury-size inclusive clothing brand which uses her own exclusive sizing system.
Emma Atherton started her clothing brand, EROSA, as a university project in 2019.
When Emma completed her fashion master’s degree in November, she decided she wanted others to enjoy the clothes she was making.
Now the 28-year-old is creating clothing from her home studio in Heswall.
Emma told the Globe: “The seed of the brand came from the project I was working on during my masters which focused on body positivity and things that aren’t quite right in our sizing system within fashion.
“Fashion can make you feel rubbish about yourself but the clothes I was making were making me feel good about myself so I thought could I bring them into a proper brand and create them for others to enjoy.”
As well as being a project for university, Emma said creating EROSA was also a personal project.
She said: “I’ve been everything from a size eight to a size 18 and I’ve been all different shapes and sizes along the way.
“So I’ve experienced it on a consumer level as well as a fashion design level.”
Emma explained that there is no regulation or law behind measurements having to equal certain sizes in the UK system.
“There is no standardisation when it comes to women’s sizing so I knew I didn’t want to use the traditional system that we have here because it doesn’t work,” Emma said.
“You might be a size eight on top but a size 14 on the bottom so what dress size do you pick?” she added.
Frustrated at the lack of diversity represented in women's sizing, Emma created her own system based off colours instead of numbers with each item fitting up to five UK dress sizes.
Emma said: “I didn’t want to use small, medium, large because who on earth am I to say if someone is small or large so I decided to go with colours because it’s easy to understand.
“Everything stretches, moulds and adapts to take in your size.
“It allows us to celebrate our body shapes because we all carry out weight in different places.
“During Covid we’ve all seen our bodies change quite a lot so people are having to throw away a lot of clothes and that adds to waste.
“Whereas because the clothes I’m creating adapt it means people are more likely to keep these pieces in their wardrobe for longer.”
Emma has been creating fashion for five years in between her studying and has worked in costume design, hat making and designed ladies’ wear for high street stores.
She said: “I was luckly that I was doing my masters when covid hit.
“It kept me occupied and meant I had something to fall back on.”
While Emma focused on creating her final collection for University, London Fashion Week began to take interest in her designs on Instagram and invited her to showcase her work.
“I was invited along with 17 other designers to showcase five looks. It was really overwhelming.
“I think after the last year, everyone was just so happy to be getting back to shows and events. It made for such a great atmosphere backstage and on the catwalk.
“I felt so lucky to have such a beautiful, diverse set of women to truly represent what EROSA is all about.
“I was proud to represent the Wirral at London Fashion Week, I’m pretty sure I was the only Northern designer there at that showcase so I felt really lucky.
“It was my childhood dream come true, I cried the entire time!
Emma says she now hopes to launch a night out collection once covid restrictions are eased and will continue to release a new style on the EROSA website every week in the meantime.
To find out more about EROSA click here.
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