Katerina Drury - The Drury's In

The Drury’s IN!


As one of the fashion industry’s brightest young talents, Katerina Drury’s already wowing the industry bigwigs.
‘I was so shocked when I won it took a week to sink in. It’s very nice to be the winner and has made me lots more confident in all my work and studies.’

Katerina Drury is reflecting on having recently won the Fashion Awards Direct competition that took place during London’s Fashion Week this year. She was shortlisted from one hundred and thirty young designers alongside twenty two other entrants. Eventually twenty two became one and Katerina, despite being only eighteen years old claimed the top accolade on the runway in front of fashion VIPs from Harrods, ASOS and Grazia.
Her excitement is infectious and inspiring. She’s an A Level student from South East London’s New Cross, she’s modest and totally unpretentious, all of which make her so endearing and deserving of her achievement. Needless to say it was Katerina’s design for the competition that catapulted her into fashion acclaim, the design was to be created for a musician or singer and Katerina chose Lady Gaga.
She reveals, ‘I wanted to be able to be bold and imaginative.’ And although Katerina doesn’t particularly like Lady Gaga, she likes the fact that the pop star designs some of her own apparel, which she finds interesting. Katerina seems to have this amazing wisdom, a wisdom you wouldn’t necessarily expect from an eighteen year old. She’s objective and open minded and this is why people warm to her. She reveals that her personal style is nothing like her design style. The piece she created for LFW was a metallic leather handkerchief hemmed skirt with a shiny grey body suit. The design had the essence of Gareth Pugh and Thierry Mugler.

The former is one of Katerina’s favourite and his creations are worn regularly by Lady Gaga and Beyonce. Katerina’s personal style, on the other hand, is simple. She humbly says, ‘I don’t really have an interesting style, I just prefer to be comfortable, but am known for my handbags and earrings.’
Katerina’s ambition is to become a fashion photographer, prior to this she wanted to be a criminologist, but having to re-take her first year at college she decided to play her more creative hand and carried out A Levels in Art and Textiles. Evidently this has worked wonders for her. As part of being the winner of the competition she has been offered an internship at Volt Magazine with the Editor in Chief and fashion photographer Rui Faria which begins in January. In the meantime she seems to have the fashion industry waiting in the wings for her next move: ‘I’ve had lots of interviews since winning but I’ve been carrying on as usual, just getting on with my A Levels.’
Although Katerina comes across as calm, she is by no means complacent and doesn’t see her ‘big win’ as her free ticket into the industry. This is a girl who isn’t afraid of hard graft, welcomes challenges and enjoys risk taking with her designs, whilst being completely level headed. ‘I am hoping that I’m going to have a strong future in the industry but it’s a very hard industry to get into and I’m going to work hard to get this for myself,’ concludes the talented young designer, with typical modesty.

Fashion Award Direct is a charity which runs workshops and competitions to help young people create their futures in fashion. http//www.fad.org.uk/archives/3760junior_awards/index.php

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