Julie Verhoeven

Julie Verhoeven was born in 1969. She studied at Central St. Martins Fashion College in London. She is now based in London.

For nearly a decade, Julie has been an illustrator. She is quite well-known for collaborating with Peter Saville for Showstudio.com for an on-line project called "Forget-Me-Not."

In Winter 2001/2 she had an exhibition and book "Fat Bottomed Girls" at London's Mobile Home Gallery. She presented about 20 drawings dedicated to her top 20 favourite songs.

Her drawings of erotically charged Lolitas and pixie princesses have appeared in The Face, Self-Service, the Fashion, the Sunday Times, Nova, the Independent, and Dazed and Confused magazines.

One of her present occupations is teaching fashion design and illustration for the MA course at Central St. Martins Fashion College in London.

She worked with John Galliano (her first boss after college) . In the late 80's she drew John Galliano's girls. Then she worked for Jasper Conran on costumes for "My Fair Lady". She lived for a while in Conran's house in Regents Park, London.

From 1993 till 2000 Julie had a long-standing relationship with Martine Sitbon in Paris, working as a design assistant and then as a consultant. She has worked as a design consultant with Jasper Conran, Richard Tyler, Guy Laroche, Jean Colonna and Clements Ribeiro and was also creatively involved with styling at the Italian house of Byblos.

In the music industry, she kept busy illustrating cover sleeves of albums by Gloss and Great 3, and illustrating pop promos for Sugar Babes and Mel G.

The Italian house of Gibo run by Franco Penne, found Julie Verhoeven to be a very talented designer. They wanted to launch their own range so that the Gibo brand would become well-known. Their choice of Verhoeven to design their collections shows Gibo's understanding for fun and wearability. Her first fashion show for GIBO was for Spring/Summer 2003. Garments showed two-tone graphics and clashing colour-blocked outfits, frilly blouses, rah-rah skirts and conical-heel pumps.

At the request of Marc Jacobs, Julie in 2001, created a set of smash hit cute nutty clouds/butterflies/animals applique bags for Louis Vuitton. Vuitton made a limited edition of 100 in each of four styles and the waiting lists grew and grew, despite the 1,000 pounds price tag. It was the "have to have" bag of the year.

Her sexy trippy illustrations were featured at both Cacharel and Louis Vuitton shows.

Her second collection for GIBO was presented during London fashion week in February 2003, for Autumn/Winter 2003.

Her collection included wide-collar two-tone coats, shirred and draped slinky dresses, lots of novelty buttons, quilted satin, lace and giant junk jewelry.

One dress with multiple colour prints on it, was very popular but had a secret. Julie said "there are actually breasts and other graphic details in the prints, it is really quite naughty." It is shown on the right.

GIBO opened a store for her in Conduit Street, London, in February 2003. Franco Penne who heads Gibo says he chose her for her creativity.