From the High Street to the Rock, Victoria Makin’s silk florals arrive in Gibraltar

Victoria Makin, a British textile designer and illustrator with a background in high‑street fashion, recently moved to Gibraltar and brought her richly layered silk paintings, luxury cushions, and interior artwork.

Her colourful, handcrafted designs focus on originality, quality, and craftsmanship, and her latest collection is currently displayed at the Arts and Crafts Shop in Casemates Square.

With a degree in fashion textile design, her signature motif is the dahlia, a flower rooted in childhood memories on a Yorkshire farm.

“Growing up, I lived on a farm, but my uncle won awards in the Yorkshire show for dahlias,” she recalled. “So I used to sit as a child and draw them.”

Her career began with a strong start when her work was highlighted at London Graduate Fashion Week.

“At London Graduate Fashion Week, I got promoted by Elle magazine. So that was a brilliant start, which gave me my first job in London,” she said.

That first role was with a handbag supplier creating fabrics for accessories. She did all forms of accessories, apart from footwear and jewellery. This start opened the door to some of the UK’s best‑known high‑street brands.

“I got into handbags in a big way because they were a vehicle to show my fabric,” she said.

“Then I got into like Accessorize, River Island, Top Shop, via the supplier who supplied them. I did the whole High Street really. I was designing five handbags a day, so it’s like quite fast fashion.”

She designed all the patterns for the bags too and, alongside handbags, she moved into scarves and hats designed to complement the bags, working in a pacey commercial environment where for over ten years her collections “were just non-stop selling out”.

After more than a decade in fast fashion, she created her own super‑luxury handbag brand, crafted in high‑quality leather and sold in Mayfair and Notting Hill.

“It was a lot of money to do it,” she admitted, but the venture led to further opportunities, including a senior role at Esprit in Düsseldorf. There, she managed a team of 11 designers and travelled extensively to factories and buyers.

“I’ve been to China 46 times over the years,” she noted.

However, the responsibility meant that there wasn’t as much time to spend on her own brand, or to pursue what she calls her “interiors” work, which are textile pieces for the home.

Change was to come once again; this time it was motherhood that prompted it, followed by a move to Spain.

“I moved to Spain because I have my children, and I just thought, ‘right, I’m going to start doing [textiles] again’ and go kind of back to my roots. So, I have kind of gone full circle, and I just love it,” she said.

Her current pieces are all hand‑illustrated, then built up in “many, many layers” on silk, with some incorporating vintage sequins sourced from London. A single work can take around a month, working for several hours every day.

The results are vivid, textural florals that, when unframed, move gently in the breeze making the piece feel and look alive.

Further life changes over the past few years made her reassess her workload and lifestyle once again and the creative side of her that once formed the basis of her career was now becoming her therapy.

Her vibrant florals are, she says, “all about colour and texture and detail” and are designed to make people happy.

“Every time I go past a florist’s shop, I take a photo and come home and paint it,” she said.

While she has a small exhibition in Casemates where the general public can see her work, many of her clients are people who move to Spain, often moving into empty properties and looking for statement pieces tailored to their aesthetic. Working with their brief and budget, she creates a piece especially for them and their new space.

The work is labour‑intensive and the materials premium, she noted, with one frame alone, with full UV protection, costing around £350 before any artwork or labour is added.

Looking ahead, she is considering a return to the Arts and Crafts shop around Christmas with a new collection that is “still colourful, but a bit more wintry, autumnal”.

From a start in fast fashion to exhibiting on the Rock, she is clear about where she wants to be now: “This, for me, is my dream.”

Her latest silk florals are currently on display until August 4.

To follow her work, go to @victoriamakin_designs on Instagram, or visit www.victoriamakin.com