A fashion designer who worked on clothing worn by celebrities including Beyoncé,  is working on her own collection which she hopes to launch next year.

Thornton Heath artist Jo Bee even met the superstar singer  face to face backstage at her after show while she was on tour.

The creative knitwear designer,  who has over a decade’s worth of industry experience and  previously worked for fashion house Julien Macdonald as sole knitwear designer for five years, said: “I was lucky enough to meet Beyonce in 2013 as Julien got tickets for himself and some of us to go with him to her tour. We got to go backstage and met her after the show. The performance was incredible and she was really friendly and down to earth to meet.”

Other celebrities including: Rita Ora, Gwen Sefani, and Kim Kardashian,  to name a few,  have all worn pieces Jo  had worked on.

Jo has a studio at Art House Croydon opened in 2018 which is owned by Artists Studio Company (ASC), one of the UK’s largest charities providing workspace to artists and makers which was open to the public last month.

Jo studied on the Fashion Knitwear Design and Knitted Textiles Design course at Nottingham Trent University graduating in 2010. 

She said: “It was never a long term goal to end up in fashion. From selecting my A-Levels to art foundation to university degree I always chose subjects that interested me as I didn’t have a clear career goal. I actually learnt to machine knit on my art foundation course which lead me to choose my degree. It wasn’t until I started my internship at Julien Macdonald that I really thought that a career in fashion was something that I would be good at.

“I interned for around six months there before being taken on as their knitwear designer. I was lucky and in the right place at the right time when the knitwear designer before me moved on. I worked solely on pieces for the catwalk twice a year and for celebrities.” Jo left Julien Macdonald in 2015 to go self employed and her work has mainly focused on freelancing for other companies. However she has started designing her own collection which she hopes to launch in 2020. 

She said: “It’s taken a while for me to get to the point of doing my own line but it’s the right time for me now and I am super excited for what’s to come. I plan on launching my website to align with the launch of my brand and hope to have an online platform to sell my designs.”

 Instagram:       jobeeknitwear