Doreen Adusei
Creative Director at Fashionworks
Doreen Adusei MBE is the founder and creative director of Fashionworks, a product and business development consultancy for the fashion and related creative industries.
After leaving the Royal College of Art with a Masters degree, she went on to design and oversee the production and manufacturing of collections for Hennes, Harvey Nichols and Liberties. She developed her forecasting and predicting skills working for Courtaulds; and went on to become a lecturer in Fashion Design and Illustration at Croydon College and Loughborough University’s Fashion department.
By 1996 her skills as a designer, and her insight into the fashion business and its needs, led her to originate the Fashionworks consultancy. Fashionworks is a unique source of design, technical to manufacturing consultancy and support to the industry.
How has your company engaged with young people and the community to improve the image of manufacturing?
We support and work with approx. 25 manufacturing fashion and accessorise businesses as well as designer-manufactures in London. Using our long established contact with these companies, we arrange 2 to 3 workshops and seminars per year in which selected manufactures, with their designer clients are able to meet potential new employees and young people who are interested in working within the industry and to answer questions about their business and industry. Additionally, we arrange in company visits, especially to designers – manufacturing companies to give insights from design development, through to manufacturing to showcasing.
What have you personally contributed to help improve the image of manufacturing?
I work with youth advisors within the London boroughs of Islington and Hackney on youth and school programmes through presentation of different job roles within the industry. I’m keen to encourage more young people to consider a career within the manufacturing industry, which is why I’m supporting Make it in Great Britain as an Industry Champion.
What more needs to be done?
The fashion manufacturing sector can do more to promote the positive and exciting changes within the industry. Manufacturing in London now concentrates more on exciting and high value manufacturers, together with the well known designers they work for such as Boudicca, Vivienne Westwood to Victoria Beckham (all of whom manufacture in London). Raising awareness of the opportunities that exist locally, and nationally, is really important and I’m looking forward to doing more of this using the platform of Make it in Great Britain.
