Dress designer Isabelle Randall on her move to Scarborough and new projects

At the age of 12, she was by her mum Linda to taken to the annual fashion show to see the students’ work on the catwalk at what was then Batley School of Art and now Dewsbury College.

"I knew there and then that was what I wanted to be. I was bowled over by the show and clothes,” said Isabelle.

Aged 14, she entered a school competition to design a Valentine’s Day dress and won. Two years later she was enrolled at Batley School of Art.

"That was the start of the rest of my life.”

Isabelle did a degree at Leeds University and her master's at the Royal College of Art in London.

Via Monaco, Norway, Brussels and Aberdeen, Isabelle is back in the Yorkshire she loves. The family lived abroad because of her father’s work in the oil and gas industries.

Isabelle now lives with her mum in South Cliff, Scarborough, and she s revitalising her label, Isabelle Randall, from her Woodend studio in The Crescent.

Isabelle started and ran her bespoke dress designing and making business in Aberdeen, where her father and brother live, for 18 years.

"My mum is here and I had been aware of being so far away, wanting to be closer and wanting to be back in Yorkshire. After Covid especially, it just made sense.”

The pandemic, as for thousands of others, made Isabelle rethink her business strategy. “I decided to put my wealth of experience and teaching knowledge together and put it online and launched a fashion academy to teach others how to design and make beautiful clothes,” she said.

Alongside working with her students, she is now ready to showcase her bespoke work – bridal, evening wear and men’s tailoring – again beginning with a tweed jacket collection.

Isabelle knows her craft – her dresses, coats and other clothing are works of art. She learned from some of the best.

In London she worked with Roland Klein who taught her attention to detail and tailoring; Bella Fraud, from whom she learned about styling and Hussein Chalayan who Isabelle described as a creative genius.

"He encouraged you to let go and not to be restricted in your own design work and experiment.”

Tiring of London, she moved to Aberdeen in 1996, moved to Brussels for work in 1999 and then back to Aberdeen four years later when she set up her own business.

"I have learned most from running my own business. I have worked with hundreds of women and done men’s tailoring.

"There is no standard size and so I really started to learn and understand proportions and the cut of a garment and how fabrics work together, how they sit, how they hang and how they tailor.

"That has been my biggest lesson, working with different bodies and different personalities.”

A one-to-one free consultation is the beginning of the design process when a client contacts Isabelle.

“I like to capture a client’s essence, their personality, what event they want the garment for, their style, what’s in their wardrobe and I sketch as we talk.

"We talk about colours and I show them fabric swatches,” said Isabelle.

She makes a pattern from scratch and from that a calico toile – prototype – which the client tries on.

Only once the toile is perfect, does Isabelle start work proper on the item of clothing.

There is usually three or more fittings where she gets the client to move around to find out how the fabric falls and fits and whether the clothing is comfortable. She charges 50 percent of the cost upfront and the remainder once the job is finished.

"The client is involved all the way through.”

Isabelle does not follow trends – either in her design or what she chooses to wear. She, not surprisingly, makes her own clothes and buys what she cannot make.

For instance, she bought an Egyptian-style necklace from Zara to wear for a wedding and then designed her outfit round the piece of jewellery.

"I have never dressed to fit in. I love fabrics, colour and cut; that’s what excites me.

"You can dress to change your mood and the way you look. There is fun in that and it is to be enjoyed.

"I encourage my students to look inwardly, on who they are and define their own signature style, put their stamp on their work, making it unique and express their personality through their work.”

You can contact Isabelle through her website at: www.isabellerandall.com or phone her on 0223 939 9261.