Callecia J Brown Fashion Show

This April, Nottingham designer Callecia J Brown held a fashion show at Eschucha entitled 'Desvalido' for her latest collection and gave Nottingham Confidential exclusive backstage access...

Callecia J Brown is a Nottingham fashion label which provides a bespoke service where customers can choose their own fabrics and have a garment designed and made just for them. Collections are also designed seasonally which are sold through independent boutiques around the country and this collection, with its beautifully tailored women and menswear, is designed to showcase the designer's many inspirations. "This collection is a history of me and everything I like" says Callecia, "it has Edwardian, Victorian, 1950s and 1980s themes, as those were the eras where people liked to dress up and fashion was important. I'm very inspired by drawings in old Victorian books and old pictures and I love old films, MGM films, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford films, I love those women, that's how women should be dressing! 

"I was born in Jamaica and I've lived in Nottingham for about eighteen years, I studied at Nottingham Trent University and then did an apprenticeship with a local tailor called Roy Smith where I learned how to do tailoring and how to make hats and corsets. I'm always learning and I love making things, and I've been working full time as a designer for four years now.

"I love Valentino, right from the beginning from the 1970s and I love Vivienne Westwood, she inspires me because I look back in history and try and make things more modern, all my jackets are influenced by something from the Edwardian or Victorian period and she does that as well. A lot of my clients come from word of mouth, about ninety-nine percent and I actually do a lot of wedding dresses and it's like a circle, people tell each other and they come back as well.

Callecia dressing her models

"The fashion scene in Nottingham is not conducive to my type of work, it's very t-shirt orientated, it's very street and someone like me doesn't really fit in to the Nottingham scene so it's very difficult. What I produce, everything comes from design, conception, I make the patterns and I cut out the fabric and make everything, the whole process is me, whereas someone will get an image maybe from the internet, buy a printer and print it onto a t shirt, I just don't think people appreciate or understand that I've created these things, people sometimes ask me if I've bought it all from Japan! But I plan to keep producing beautiful clothes."

You can see more photos from the fashion show and from behind the scenes in our Facebook photo album here and watch footage in our video clips below.