R-L: Managing Director of TRU, Corné du Rand and Ayesha Simms-Brown with her manufactured design.
BA (Hons) Fashion Sportswear students have been working with TRU Sportswear on their first ladies rugby team wear.
Throughout the design project students worked alongside TRU Sportswear and were assisted by Old Albanians Saints Ladies rugby team. From the 12 final designs, Ayesha Simms-Brown and Alasdair Leighton-Crawford’s designs have been put into production.
Kate Barnes, captain of Old Albanians Saints commented
It was an awesome experience for us to be involved in shaping the new TRU kit. As a ladies rugby team we know how our kit needs to perform and now we have played in it we absolutely love it! It’s great to see TRU getting behind ladies rugby and supporting the game with specific ladies fit kit. It means there is now more choice for female rugby players!
Claudine Rousseau, Course Leader, BA (Hons) Fashion Sportswear commented:
This collaboration was invaluable to set boundaries in design development to balance the functional and aesthetic requirements and to truly understand fit and comfort requirements from a physiological and psychological view. It was a fantastic experience for our Fashion Sportswear students and truly exciting to see their ideas go into production.
Designed and engineered to fit the female form, the new designs include “Club”, “Contemporary” and “Elite” fit. The shirts have been styled to include tailored necklines, longer length of shirts (to prevent riding up during play), bust fit, smaller arm hole sizing and new ladies fit ‘SXY’ shorts that include lycra undershorts as part of the design.
This is a pretty awesome design for ladies rugby kit. This is great use of creativity by students working for TRU Sportswear. It would be really encouraging for students to see two of their designs being selected for production.