A Belfast model has told how she was “over the moon” after being asked to walk for Pretty Little Thing at London Fashion Week.
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ernadette Hagans will take to the catwalk alongside Love Island star Molly-Mae Hague, the label’s creative director.
It is the company’s first runway show at event, which starts on Friday and runs to Tuesday.
Bernadette, from west Belfast, announced the news to her 26,000 followers on Instagram.
She wrote: “Wooo. I’m walking for Pretty Little Thing in their first ever show during London Fashion Week.”
Bernadette’s leg was amputated after she was diagnosed with cancer in 2018.
Since learning to walk with a prosthetic limb, her modelling career has gone from strength to strength.
She came third in last year’s Miss Northern Ireland pageant, picking up a ‘beauty with a purpose’ award along the way.
Keen to embrace life as an amputee, she signed a contact with Zebedee Management, which specialises in models with disabilities, two years ago, but is now represented by ACA Models, which is based in Belfast.
Pretty Little Thing is not her first collaboration with a big brand. Over the years, Bernadette has worked with Primark, Ray-Ban and Kurt Geiger.
On top of her modelling career, she’s a charity ambassador for Young Lives vs Cancer, previously known as CLIC Sargent.
Last year, she appeared in the BBC documentary Our Lives: The Girl with the Colourful Leg, which followed her journey.
Bernadette told this newspaper that while the last few years had been a whirlwind, walking for Pretty Little Thing at London Fashion Week would be the highlight of her career so far.
“This is a huge milestone. It means so much to me to know that amputees watching this fashion show will feel represented,” she said.
Love Island star Ms Hague was appointed creative director of Pretty Little Thing on the back of a number of highly successful collections for the brand.
While she was known as an online influencer before appearing on TV, her stint on the show, in which she was runner-up with Tommy Fury, turned her into a social media sensation.
She now has more than six million followers on Instagram, and that number is likely to grow after she launches her latest collection at London Fashion Week.
Ms Hague previously explained how she wanted to move the brand away from fast fashion.
She told the Retail Gazette: “We want people to love these garments and to wear them constantly. We’ve worked really hard and created pieces that will be timeless and that girls can keep in their wardrobes, so it’s not throwaway fashion.”
The reality star said the latest range was “unlike anything we’ve ever done”.
“It’s just going to blow people’s minds because we’ve never done anything to this scale before. It’s so elevated,” she added.
The collection features day-to-night pieces and workwear that can be styled in multiple ways, all at an affordable price.
Pretty Little Thing is also launching an initiative to give unwanted items a second life.
It has been working on creating a marketplace where shoppers can buy not just its pieces but second-hand items from any brand.
Watch the London Fashion Week catwalk show on Pretty Little Thing’s YouTube channel
