MEET THE DESIGNER
I grew up around making. My father’s family were master furriers, and my mother was Laura Ashley’s first fashion designer. Making things has always been part of my life, but my route into fashion has been anything but straight.
After graduating in fashion, I spent ten years living in West Penwith, Cornwall, where I developed my art practice and built a nomadic studio. Working this way changed how I saw materials, where they come from and what we make with them. Over time, this led me back to fashion, with a different set of questions.
I'm interested in the possibilities of botanical colour, the character of natural materials and how we might make clothing differently.
Fashion doesn't have to be made the way it is now. I'm interested in what happens when we start again, with plants, natural materials and a different set of values.
Fashion runs through my family.
My father’s family were master furriers for nine generations. They made furs for King George III and Queen Victoria and held a Royal Warrant. My mother was Laura Ashley’s first fashion designer, and my grandmother was a talented freestyle pattern cutter.
I’ve always made things. At eight, I had my first go on a sewing machine, making a superhero cape for my teddy. By thirteen, I'd sold my first skirt for £10, made from offcuts of Clan Campbell of Cawdor tartan left over from my mother's commission to make uniforms for Cawdor Castle.
George Poland and Son - Furriers to the rich, friends to the poor article, 2nd Dec 1880, British Library
The Road Less Travelled
I left Cornwall in my converted truck, the Nomadic Studio, and spent five years living in an ancient oak woodland in West Wales. It was there that I discovered oak gall ink, opening up a new exploration of botanical colour.
In 2022, I received an Arts Council of Wales Create grant for a solo exhibition at Elysium Gallery, Swansea. The exhibition brought together five years of work with botanical colour, including an installation of 40 natural-dyed, painted canvases.
Working with naturally dyed fabric brought me back to fashion, with a different understanding of materials and responsibility.
In 2025, I won both Top Designer and Most Sustainable Designer at Pembrokeshire Fashion Festival. In October 2026, FERAL COLOUR - The Artist Collection debuted at the festival.
Recognition and selected work
Photographer and filmmaker Mark Lebon commissioned me to create an unconventional, plant-dyed, hand-painted kilt for him to wear to the Serpentine Gallery Summer Party. The kilt featured visible threads, a pocket and leather ties. Dyed with madder root, chestnut, weld and iron, it was finished with a naturally dyed kilt-pin corsage, lavender locket and kilt sock flashes.
In September 2025, I showed my work at Crafting Fashion Futures, a symposium organised by Fashion Declares! and Selvedge Magazine at Conway Hall. My dress was displayed in the foyer as part of A Regenerative Fashion Future.
The dress was plant-dyed and painted, and made from fair-trade, organic, unbleached cotton from Chetna Organics in India. Safia Minney MBE, founder of People Tree and Fashion Declares!, gifted me the fabric to create the piece for the symposium.
Fashion On Earth, Bristol Cathedral, with Sustainable Fashion Week (2024)
Ande Bomber featured in the Sustainable Fashion Week UK Christmas Gift Guide (2024)
Ande Bomber featured in the Make It British Christmas Gift Guide (2024)
Photography on this page by Katie de Silva, Felin Studio and Sarah Poland