By SHELLEY EMLING
semling@coxnews.com
Published on: 06/29/07

London — Olivia Prance and her friend Mallory Evelyn, both 17 of Canton, have decided they want to become fashion designers and to create a label together.

The only trouble is they can't decide if their apparel line should be called Olivia Mallory or Mallory Olivia — or a one-word mix of both names.

(ENLARGE) Georgia students visiting London this week as part of an overseas field trip to learn more about fashion design include, from left: Mallory Evelyn, 17, of Canton; Brandy Duncan, 15, of Woodstock; Olivia Prance, 17, of Canton; teacher Karron English, founder of the design laboratory; and Henley Cook, 14, of Marietta.

What they are sure of is that they'd both like to live and work in Paris one day. That dream became one step closer to reality this week as both girls visited Paris and London, and toured schools as part of a trip organized by the English Design Laboratory, the first fashion design art lab in the Cobb-Cherokee County area. "I've always liked art and fashion and looking at clothes and going shopping," said Prance, who takes an advanced fashion design course at the design laboratory on Tuesday evenings. Karron English, who founded the design laboratory in 2004, traveled with four of her students to Paris on June 18. They spent a few days there before traveling on to London. "My role is to try to expose the students to different avenues they can take," English said. "The students could be buyers or stylists or a designer of textiles. An interest in fashion design can lead them to all sorts of places." She said the idea is to expose the students to schools abroad because many of them would like to go overseas to study once they finish high school. In Paris, the group visited the Louvre, the Palace of Versailles and Parsons Paris, part of the New York-based Parsons the New School for Design. In London, they visited the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. One of the highlights was a visit to WGSN, a leading trend analysis and news service for the fashion and style industries. "I really enjoyed this and learned a lot," said Henley Cook, 14, of Marietta. "I learned at WGSN that there's a lot more to fashion than just designing clothes. "You also have to know about writing and computers and photography," she said. The group also visited a variety of well-known stores in both cities, including Louis Vuitton in Paris and Topshop, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols in London. "The idea was to expose them to what's behind all the ads in the magazines," English said. English graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1986 and worked in New York for a decade designing apparel lines for companies such as Bugle Boy and the Limited Corp. When her husband's job brought them to Georgia, she took a position with Coca-Cola, working with its apparel licenses. The trip to Paris and London was the third field trip organized by English. Previously she's taken students to New York and Los Angeles. "Again, it was all about exposing the students to the different design avenues they can take," English said.