From personal vision to professional Fashion Design | Degree Show Stories
15 June 2026
At Falmouth, Fashion Design isn’t a one size fits all approach. Students in our Fashion & Textiles Institute are encouraged to embrace their originality and are supported throughout their time here to turn their unique visions into highly professional fashion concepts.
We caught up with final year BA(Hons) Fashion Design students Diana Gibbons and Lillian Cooper, who discuss the unique ideas behind their final collections, the huge amount of skills they’ve developed to realise their concepts, and why studying in Cornwall is “the best environment to study fashion”.
Diana Gibbons - BA(Hons) Fashion Design
At Falmouth, Fashion Design isn’t a one size fits all approach. Students in our Fashion & Textiles Institute are encouraged to embrace their originality and are supported throughout their time here to turn their unique visions into highly professional fashion concepts. We caught up with final year BA(Hons) Fashion Design student Diana Gibbons who discuss the unique ideas behind her final collection and why studying in Cornwall is “the best environment to study fashion”.
“I am Diana Gibbons and I do BA(Hons) Fashion Design. My final collection is basically a commentary on luxury. What is truly natural, what feels good on your skin, what connects you to the Earth, and can we afford that? How is it different from fast fashion? That kind of thing. It's sort of a rhetorical question of; would you spend the money? Would you actually buy it? Would you learn how to do it?
“Falmouth is great. The attitude towards living is very different here. It inspires me and it makes me want to go in the sea and experience the feel the experience that is Falmouth, which I haven't felt anywhere else.
“I will want to find the Falmouth environment wherever I go. All the people I've met here are so special and so different. Here, it's more to do with who you are as an individual, what you care about, and therefore, it's the best environment to study fashion.”
Lillian Cooper - BA(Hons) Fashion Design
At Falmouth, Fashion Design isn’t a one size fits all approach. Students in our Fashion & Textiles Institute are encouraged to embrace their originality and are supported throughout their time here to turn their unique visions into highly professional fashion concepts. We caught up with final year BA(Hons) Fashion Design student Lillian Cooper who shares how she translated her passion for dance and movement into a standout collection, with the help of the advanced construction and pattern cutting skills she gained on the course.
“I'm Lillian, and I'm on Fashion Design. My final collection started with me looking a lot at movement. I took a lot of inspiration from dance, really looking into how clothes can move around the body, and that led me into this exploration into laser cutting these sliced pieces and how that can create shape around the body.
“I think the biggest challenge for me was patience. So, it was just trusting the process and that I was going to get it right in time. Being in Cornwall, you get this space to actually be creative.
“Yes, it is a design course, but it's also a course that teaches you how to go into industry, whereas I think some courses are more about coming up with this big, exciting vision. Falmouth is more about real construction and real pattern cutting.
“I think, to me, Falmouth is really about just openness. The more I lived in Falmouth, the more I felt like I was really a part of that community. I like the balance of calm and excitement. It's very peaceful, and it's just such a happy place.”
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