From London’s closed creative scene to Liverpool’s open arms: Melissa-Kate is ripping up the rule book of British fashion...

She left behind the city that never let her in, and now she’s building a new kind of fashion empire, one stitched with class, defiance, and Northern grit.

Merseyside-based fashion designer, Melissa-Kate, talks creative breakthrough, elitist funding, and her leaving the big smoke to rediscover her creative life up north.

Melissa-Kate has always had fashion in her blood. She knew she wanted to be a designer before she could even spell it! Sketching dresses at five years old and never really stopping. After her A Levels, she dived straight into Liverpool's Rare School of Fashion, then moved on to Northumbria University, where she mastered the craft of her long-term obsession.

Her internship year didn’t exactly go to plan for all the right reasons. She landed a design job that threw her straight into the deep end, creating for some of the biggest names on the high street and fast-fashion scene: Boohoo, Missguided, ASOS, New Look, PrettyLittleThing, Quiz, even Debenhams. She had a hand in celebrity collabs, Love Island drops, and a MissPap x Amber Rose deal that made her a household name in the high street fashion designer world.

Her illustrations have even caught the eye of Moschino, and she is no stranger to the occasional styling gig.

Then came 2020… no final collection, no runway, just lockdown. But instead of waiting it out, she built her portfolio, redefined her vision, and went after her Master’s at Jimmy Choo's Fashion Academy, determined to be her own boss. Out of that came Melissa-Kate, her namesake label, and a teaching role at the academy.

Now back in her hometown of Liverpool, she’s built a studio that feels like her own creative paradise. Melissa-Kate is doing what she set out to...

Destined sat down with Melissa-Kate to muse her decision to move back to her home city after a long 10 years of building her career, living in London, and exploring where she stood as a ‘Scouse Prin’ in the world of fashion. 

How did you start your creative journey in Liverpool?

"I would say that it all started at RARE school of fashion really, but I did grow up and go to school on the Wirral. My journey started when I finished my A-levels in a grammar school, but let's be honest a grammar school doesn’t really allow creative people or neurodivergent people to flourish at all. 

I felt like I just needed to be fully creative, and let my ideas run wild and RARE allowed me to do that, I spent one year there.

It was in the middle of Liverpool, so I’d go to the clubs of an evening which were just on the next street, and I remember I just felt like I was living this free life of being creative, it was the most care-free, and experimental time. They really let me grow through their amazing support. Like they supported YOU."

What’s different about being a creative in Liverpool as opposed to being a creative in London?

“I’ve been a creative in London for the past 5 years now, and I’ve technically not lived in Liverpool for 9? 10? Years? Something like that… So I’ve been out of the city for a long long time, I recently moved back, and I’m in the process of rediscovering it all. But the thing about London was that my time there became, like, completely soulless? You know.. There’s no humanity there anymore, people are quick to push past you on the tube, people in stores won’t even speak to you when saying “Good Morning”... The whole place is miserable! But looking at it as a creative, it’s very expensive, and let’s be honest as creatives we’re not all living those rich lives, we’re not making a ton of money. We live for the culture, we live for that creativeness. Of course there was a lot of that in London, you very quickly realise how kind of pretentious it all is… Its kind of… I don’t know how to say it other than like… It’s not the nicest is it? Hahaha, that’s definitely not the best way to describe it, is it?”

Do you think the creative scene London is more open or closed off?

“If I’m going to actually be honest, I just find the scene in London weird! Like, there’s so much going on all of the time, the people at the top and most magazines only really care about others if they’ve made it in life. Take the British Fashion Council for example, they’re only giving grants out to… they say… ‘emerging designers’ and all this… but these are designers who have already been established for a very long time and already have things like stockists, so you essentially have to get to a certain point to actually receive any help and it became a bit like ‘oh, who’s richest?’ or ‘who can pay for what?’ and obviously I wasn’t trying to fight against that, I was trying to work with it and be a part of that, but I had to eventually surrender and take a step back and say to myself you know what… I see how all the creatives are living in Liverpool, and living in London is painful - hahaha. Like don’t get me wrong! It’s so much fun, but now that I’ve left I almost hate the idea of the city (London). (Southerners killed me off as well) They don’t like girly, loud, feminine, Scouse women! That is a complete eye and ear sore to them, so the idea of coming back to Liverpool was just like Heaven! I got excited about the idea of being around people like myself again, people who accept me, people who love me, people who are care-free! Life cheaper here, and all of a sudden everything felt like it clicked into place when I realised I wanted to move back home. I had the huge realisation of this being my path, and that I don’t have to do creativity the same as everyone else…”

“It’s good to be back, i’m just working out how to be a creative in Liverpool.”

Best thing to come out of moving back home?

“I just find it really strange! There’s just so many different pockets, so you’ve got your huge ‘underground’ scene there, I’d say also that the emerging scene is split into separate groups of styles, cultures, social cultures? - you know? Things like that. Then you’ve got your people who are small but have a cult following or large online presence. 

Forget the rest of the creative scene, like anything higher up, I don’t care about that! I’ve been in rooms with the most pretentious people and people who are considered to have ‘made it in life’... Some are great… Some are not… But let’s really look at it from the perspective of people who are on the same level as me, I could never really find my place… I enjoyed every part of the creative scene that I was able to experience, but the weird thing is that the music and art scene (in London) is all mixed up, and I think that this tends to work really well in underground scenes. I found in London that these types of creative people were not bothered about buying the fashion, and wearing the fashion, they were more bothered about their own personal branding. So they would love people to see them at this event, at the red carpet here and on the front row there, and I got to a point where I’d be nearing doing my shows for Fashion Week and all of these people would be messaging me and coming out of the woodworks trying to come to these shows (mainly men - haha) and I’d just be laughing because why would YOU want to come to my show? My entire brand is centered around femininity, unless you’re a man who wears feminine clothing then I don’t understand why you’d want to come to my show? It makes no sense. People started to want to come to my shows for their own benefit instead of supporting my brand. All people out for themselves…

Think of people like (Alexander) McQueen when he started out, there was a few people who leeched off of him as a designer and then he cherished those people throughout his life. All of these people just want to use you. And that doesn’t start and end with fashion, it applies to musicians, and other creative people.

I also had a really bad experience with London based stylists, they have a reputation for lending designs and not returning them, the disrespect coming from designers needs to be addressed.”

Best thing to come out of moving back home?

"The best thing is having a studio space now. I’ve had studio spaces before in London but they were always owned by companies I worked for. I was never able to afford my own independent space. I was one of those people who could barely afford rent in London, so it’s such a huge thing being able to come home and actually have a studio space. You don’t realise how having that space actually fuels your ability to create so much more. Time and money are the most valuable things when it comes to being a designer, and just having a space like that just makes all the difference!”

What would you like to see come out of the creative scene in Liverpool?

“I feel like we just need more of it in general! I didn’t realise how much power creatives had until I moved to London, like I can’t lie, London creatives have their shit together. I just wanted to come back up here and shake every creative and be like ‘do you realise the power we hold? And what we can do?’. We’re all here for free, we all help each other for free because we know we can’t pay each other, and we make that content, we bring those ideas to life, we just need to come together in that way and we need to really shake the industries which we’re in. It’s possible! It’s happened before, and it will happen again… We will make it happen. Liverpool are literally leading the way in the retail area of shopping at the moment, why aren’t we leading the way in terms of fashion design? We can! I know we can! It’s just about who wants to be on board with it and who wants to sit and watch…”

Advice to anyone who is navigating Liverpool as a creative/ trying to connect with other creatives?

“Honestly, my advice to any creatives in Liverpool, in Merseyside or in the surrounding areas, I mean social media, modelling, styling, anything! Even if you're. a musician! Is... GET IN TOUCH!!! Get in touch with me if you have an idea. (Stylists, models, designers, content creators) Let’s do it. Let’s make things happen. Let’s find a time, let’s find a place, let’s find people that we need to help and let’s just do it…

I don’t like to sit on the sides, I like to do things and get them done, and I also like to work with other people. If you think that you have an amazing idea, but you just don’t have the right people to help make it happen, you can connect with me and we will make it happen!”

A huge thanks to Melissa-Kate for taking part in this interview. You can find more out about her work and her label on her Instagram page @missmelissakate

By Aleisha Petafi