FASHION designer Fiona Goodrum is determined to make her mark – against all odds.
Fiona survived a near fatal kidney condition and has now met the credit crunch head on.
The 23-year-old Huddersfield university graduate has launched her own fashion label – fgdesigns – and is determined to make her business a success.
Originally from Durham, Fiona grew up in the fashion, textile and wool industry.
Her parents owned their own business in the city’s indoor market and as a young girl she drew designs for her mother’s knitwear designs.
But years of ill health which started with her developing whooping cough and bronchitis as a baby and continued into adulthood with constant kidney infection had a dramatic effect on her education.
She missed most of her nursery and primary schooling. And in the final year of her four-year BA honours fashion, manufacture and textile degree at Huddersfield she suffered her worst ever bout of infection which she was told nearly killed her.
This led to her having to turn down a work experience opportunity which she had arranged with a leading Asian fashion designer in New York this summer.
Fiona said: “Everything has continued to spiral in my life and seems to have tried to get me down, or to stop what I’m doing, but yet I’m persistent that I’m going to do what I have always wanted to do.
“I haven’t come this far, 23 years, to stop now!
“When I finally got better, still undergoing investigations to my reoccurring health problems and still having operations, the credit crunch attacked!”
She has developed her business with the university’s Business Mine support and is now selling her designs online.
Fiona added: “I have come to learn and be determined that I will not be defeated and I will succeed!”
Designs can be purchased on fgdesigns.exofire.net and she also has a page fgdesigns on facebook
