Nadur girl lands designer job with Valentino

The fur jackets in the winter 2009 collection of top Italian designer Valentino should have the Gozitan touch - Caroline Hili from Nadur has landed a job at the exclusive fashion house in Milan and, together with her boss, is responsible for the label's heart: leather, fur and embroidery.

But for the ambitious and hard-working 24-year-old fashion designer, who has just completed a four-year course at Milan's Marangoni Institute with flying colours, her job at Valentino is simply "a good start and a good place to grow".

Although she is loving the job, her insatiable sights are set on Paris and haute couture - where her passion really lies - and eventually, the creation of her own label.

"I want to create dresses that make you dream; fantasy not reality," says the girl who claims a love for painting, added to a love for fashion, equals a fashion designer.

"I am constantly being congratulated for 'getting there', but I don't feel like I got anywhere. I may say that when I am 80."

The prestigious Valentino post is her launching pad into a sphere that is inhabited by other major fashion houses, including Dior, Givenchy and Balenciaga, which also tickle her fancy.

But despite her future goals, Caroline is not complaining about her placement at Valentino's "main area", which she immediately landed, fresh from her course. She admits it is the better students who are offered the better placements.

Just being in the office with her boss is already a major experience, but she is doing more than that: "I'm not making coffee and photocopies," as one would imagine. Caroline is researching, designing, attending fairs and meeting suppliers. She is currently preparing modules for lacework, as well as toiling on the beading for the various collections of every Valentino line.

After all, "nothing is designed by the big guys; they just give the go-ahead, or request amendments," she points out.

Caroline's success is the result of her perfectionist traits and sky-scraping levels of confidence. It is not surprising that she knew she had her interviewers at Valentino in the bag.

"They are designers, but so am I," she shrugs, waving off any intimidation she could have felt during the meeting.

The fact that her boss was a frequent visitor of Nadur - of all places - was undoubtedly an additional bonus. But Caroline's success at the interview was not just due to the fact that it is a small world, she points out.

An only child, her father reluctantly let his bird leave the nest. "He was depressed when I left - maybe because he knew I was not gone for four years, but forever...

"I don't want a home; I want to live like a gypsy - only in hotels not tents!"

But she remains eternally grateful to her parents. "I want to take care of them well and pay them back for all their support," she says of her future plans.

Caroline ended her course at Marangoni with a fashion show by the 200 graduating students - which she was privileged to be asked to open. And she did so with a bang, creating her "pulcino" outfit at the institute's last-minute request and following their instructions that it had to be a ball, engulfing the model.

Caroline may have been sick, tired and running out of time - everything had been scheduled to the last second - but she took on the challenge, as her teachers knew she always did.

"I did not want to simply follow the 'ball' mandate, so I created one that opened up and had 'birds' flapping around. Despite the lack of time and stress, I even decided to design the shoes, which had lights in their heels."

And the desired "wow" effect was achieved.

Caroline was also the only one asked to create four designs instead of three. She spent many a sleepless night - and her battered fingertips were the proof of it - to create dresses composed of as many as 80 pieces and characterised by "lots of movement...

"They had to be different to be noticed... This was not about liking, or hating the dresses; this was not about beautiful; it was about fabulous."

As to her own style, she cannot really claim to have one. Malta's fashion scene is always a disappointment for the girl who, the other day, hit Valletta with money in her pocket, but still returned home rich, following an aborted shopping spree.

Local fashion sense leaves much to be desired because of the lack of choice, she maintains, adding that what is available in many shops is what you would find in market stalls - only much more expensive.

Having said that, when you understand how much it actually costs to produce an item of clothing, the astronomical prices of designer pieces cannot justify buying them, Caroline feels.

"They are good for the fashion victims!"