Retired Alumnus celebrates at Everest Base Camp!
Suzi Derbyshire (maiden name Vaughan) left Penrhos in 1981 to study fashion design.
She graduated from Saint Martins School of Art in London in 1986 with a 1st Class Hons Degree and worked as a womenswear fashion designer for ten years.
During that time, her work took her all over the world and she lived in London and Hong Kong and travelled extensively throughout S.E. Asia.
She learnt to scuba dive in Boracay, Philippines and was lucky enough to dive in pristine reefs in Egypt, the Caribbean and Australia.
After ten years in the fashion industry, Suzi was ready for a new adventure and switched career into fashion education.
She worked at London College of Fashion for six years, leading the College’s degree in Fashion Design Technology until in 2002, she migrated to Queensland, Australia to start the first Fashion Degree course in Queensland.
She and husband Barry have lived in Queensland for eighteen years, becoming Australian citizens in 2005.
They have travelled around Australia and New Zealand and particularly love the mountains of Tasmania and New Zealand’s South Island.
Suzi’s career QUT (Queensland University of Technology) provided many opportunities for growth and leadership and Suzi retired at the end of 2019, after nine years in the role of Deputy Vice Chancellor (Learning and Technology). Upon retirement, her service to the university was recognised through conferral of the title of Emeritus Professor.
Two weeks after retiring, Suzi and Barry set off to pursue a lifetime ambition – the three week, 250km trek from Jiri to Everest Base Camp, following the route that Sir Edmund Hillary took in the 1950s.
Covid-19 has somewhat disrupted Suzi’s travel plans for 2020 but living in Australia, which is now almost Covid free, Suzi and Barry have been lucky enough to explore more of their own state and have started ‘van life’ adventures with their very well-travelled second-hand campervan.
Suzi’s life and career really do demonstrate how far a good education and a qualification in design can take you!
If you’d like to learn a bit more about Suzi’s ideas about fashion design, you can watch her short TEDx Talk ‘Fashion your Future – Think More Like a Fashion Designer’.
The link to the take can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkjNxCzBUqQ
So far, her talk has had over 328k views.
