Fashion, Jade Marie Marchant, T-Shirts

Jade-Marie Marchant is a fashion and textiles design student currently entering her fourth and final year of university. Jade set up Sugar Romance after her boyfriend Ryan wanted a plain jumper made more exciting. Jade says that Sugar romance is a brand that offers “exciting bold fashion pieces for those people who want to look different and stand out. The brand is quirky and fun and I want that to be portrayed in the garments.”

Sugar Romance is different because…

I personally hand make everything I sell. Each garment usually has some influence from the customer, which makes the experience more enjoyable and not only do they receive the garment, they have actually played apart in the making. This means that pretty much most of the garments are individual to each customer.

I’m inspired by…

Lots of things inspire me, Ryan mainly as he pushed me to do the business and to also carry on with putting new ideas into it, he often sits with me designing garments and prints. Having someone believe in you is probably the best inspiration you can get. In terms of designers obviously Alexander McQueen but also Phillip Plein , Aitor Throup and Holly Fulton.

I work on designs literally by talking with the customer to identify exactly what they want and usually I sit in my studio and simply just start working on them, I think sometimes you get better results when you don’t overthink something. In terms of prints I sit in bed with my laptop and use the good old Photoshop and illustrator and see what I can create, I never follow a set way.

Biggest challenge so far…

Has been trying to balance my business with university and of course the social life. Its really tough and I have to be really organised in what I do. Every day I wake up and in my head I lay out a list of how the day is going to go….half the time this never happens ha.

My highlight so far…

Was when I went out the other weekend and I was standing chatting and laughing with my friends and I looked over and there was someone standing in one of my garments. I nearly started crying. As a designer it’s so hard to explain the warm fuzzy feeling you get inside when you see someone looking happy and proud to be out in something you’ve designed and made! It’s amazing!!

The dream for the brand is…

To appear at LFW and be recognised internationally. However the garments would change I would no longer do just casual wear, that would play a small part. The garments I would love to design will be apparent in my final collection. Lots of structure, 3D shapes, and geometric prints combined with skulls and bright colours. I love oversized garments and this is exactly what I dream for the brand to be made up of.

Do you think the market is saturated with people trying to create T-shirt brands…

I definitely think that is true, so many t-shirt brands exist and now anyone can bulk buy t-shirts stick a design on it and sell them, however the designers that have worked hard studying will be the ones that achieve big and wonderful things. There is a limit of how far you can go with a t-shirt!

I want people to wear my brand and feel…

Comfortable about being different, I want them to feel happy and bubbly and confident. These garments stand out and grab people’s attention so the person wearing it should feel special.

I predict that…

80’s fashion will make a come back … it’s slowly creeping back in and I personally would love that. Go check out the exhibition at the V&A, Club to Catwalk you can have a little dance whilst checking out some awesome fashion statements.

Team MSL in their Sugar Romance tees…