One of Northumbria Uni's finest!!

I am proud to be a graduate of the amazing BA(Hons) in Fashion Marketing at Northumbria University in Newcastle (a graduate of many moons ago!!) & I'm always promoting this course to my students so it goes without saying that I need to mention one of my old classmates, Shaun Kearney!

Shaun is a graduate of the Fashion Design course but he was in the same year as me. His girlfriend, Alison was in my class on Fashion Marketing and I was part of the close knit group of friends who hung out together!! Me, Alison, Catherine & Katherine, Morag & a few others got up to some right mischief, but we also worked hard! I knew very early on that Shaun & Ali would make it big as their final degree shows were just amazing!!

They moved to New York not long after graduating (1996 if you must know!!) and have been there ever since. Alison became a textiles designer and Shaun has worked his way up to the highest level becoming Creative Director for Cynthia Steffe in the early noughties!

Shaun and Alison were the nicest people you could meet, they never had a bad word to say about anyone which is a rarity in this industry. They both went through heartbreak during their final year at Northumbria when Shaun lost his beloved dad and Alison lost her mum, both to cancer. But I think this gave them the motivation to make something of themselves and to make their family proud!

I was thrilled to be invited to their wedding in Liverpool in 2004. We had a total blast and danced the night away! Seeing Douglas Maclennan, the God of the Fashion degree, dancing like a loon was just brilliant!!

Shaun and Alison became parents to the beautiful Skyla a few years ago and I was able to meet up with them when Shaun was invited back to Northumbria to be awarded an honorary doctorate from the University! They had never changed & we had a good gossip about life!!

I would love it if Shaun was ever able to come into CCAD to talk to my students about his career. That would just be amazing but as they're based in NYC I think it would be a little difficult, and I think he would be out of my budget allowance for a visiting speaker!!!

Anyway, Shaun decided to leave Cynthia Steffe at the end of 2011 to seek out new ventures and the fantastic news is that Shaun has been named as the executive vice president and creative director of Magaschoni Co. I am so thrilled for him as he deserves every bit of success & I wish him lots of luck!

Here's a link to his own blog although I can't begin to imagine how he has the time to keep it updated!! Congratulations to one of Northumbria's true success stories!! :)