Nottingham Trent fashion student designs the university’s new graduation gowns

Nottingham Trent University has revamped its gowns for the first time in 30 years, and it was done by one of their very own students.

The university opened a design competition to their fashion students to determine the new look for its graduation gowns. 25-year-old Georgia Stevenson won the competition and has now graduated with a Master’s in Fashion and Creative Pattern Cutting.

She described the experience of wearing her own design on her graduation day as “surreal”.

According to the NTU website, Georgia took her inspiration from the university’s very own Arkwright Building and coat of arms, topping it off with NTU’s signature bright pink.

via Nottingham Trent University

In an interview she described her thought process and what made her settle on this design: “I started thinking about how I can make NTU’s new gown different, so I started looking at previous uni students who had graduated here and saw the backdrop of the building was the Arkwright Building, so I took inspiration from the angles and the curves because it’s such a unique building.”

Georgia told Notts TV she didn’t know much about academic wear going into the competition, but she researched and did well in the end.

“I didn’t think I’d stand here wearing a gown that I’d designed throughout my whole MA, I didn’t think this would ever happen, I guess Nottingham Trent are great for providing this opportunity,” she said.

Her family were able to be there when she graduated and her Dad expressed his pride in his daughter: “She’s worked really hard for this, night and day, there’s been a lot of time I’ve come home from work, and she’s still been working,” he said.

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“Everything she’s put in she’s deserved it.”

The university’s previous gowns consisted of 24 academic dress designs in their brand colours and have been used since 1990.

Amanda Briggs-Goode, Head of Department for Fashion, Textiles and Knitwear Design at NTU spoke of the novelty of having personalised gowns.

“We worked really closely with registry and Graduate Attire to build a brief that would inspire the students, meet the branding needs and respond to the production issues that Graduate Attire needed to consider when designing a new gown.

“After a short judging process, we interviewed some of the students, went into more depth about their ideas and Georgia was the winner of that competition, she was an absolute joy to work with, very open minded.”

Image via NTU website

The university used  30-post consumer recycled plastic bottles to make the gowns in order to be as sustainable as possible and minimise the fabric waste during the process.

Dave Whitlock, Deputy Academic Registrar at the University, thought there was a need for a change in the gowns to match the values of NTU better.

“I really like the gowns, particularly when they come out the University Hall you see a sea of pink, the last time we did it was in 1990, I think they just needed a bit of a refresh and Georgia did an amazing job,” he said.

“Sustainability is really important for us because it’s one of our strategic themes, embracing sustainability, we’re also recently awarded to be the second most sustainable University in the world.”

Feature image via NTU website