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.
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.