Fashion Loves Comedy: Jenny Eclair, Shaparak Khorsandi, Lucy Porter, Hannah Byczkowski and Laura Smyth join Yorkshire fashion designer Bo Carter for catwalk and stand-up show

The dress - a yellow, fleecy, organic cotton tunic with a high cowl neck - was bright and punchy, well suited to both the wearer and the occasion. Comedians always have something to say, and so do Bo Carter’s ethically produced organic and vegan clothes. Why not bring the worlds of fashion and comedy together?

“I am not into influencers and people who just want to put out TikTok videos about nothing - I want it to be more than that” says Bo, who is based in Leeds. “The vibe of the catwalk is changing - we don’t do that size 8 standard catwalk thing.

“I was never into comedy because it was a very male-orientated world - it used to be. In the last 10 years or so, there have been so many more female comics coming through. I got interested in the whole world of comedy.”

She met with comedian, writer and actor Tiff Stevenson, who suggested she organised a comedy-meets-fashion show in London. “If someone says something to me like that, I just go and do it,” says Bo.

So she began planning Fashion Loves Comedy, a show that sees comedians take to the catwalk. It takes place next but has already attracted the attendtion of some of the UK’s leading comedians. Jenny Éclair is taking part, as is Shaparak Khorsandi, plus many others including Alexandra Haddow, Hannah Byczkowski, Sophie Duker, Lucy Porter, Rosie Holt, Amy Matthews, Desiree Burch, Kemah Bob, Kelly Ford, Laura Smyth, Little Pickle, Naomi Cooper, Ria Lina, Sharon Wanjohi, Tatty Macleod and Yuriko Kotani.

In fact, so many comedians have come forward since Bo’s callout that the original planned event has grown into a mini festival of style and comedy, celebrating International Women’s Day (March 8) across three days - March 7 at Studio Jones in E8, and March 8 and March 10 (the grand finale) of the Fashion Loves Comedy Festival at Tooting Tram & Social.

As well as modelling on the catwalk, the comedians will also perform stand-up slots, blending humour with haute couture to leave audiences in stitches. The events will raise money for the Choose Love charity, with all profits going to support refugees and displaced people across the world.

Several of the comedians also took part in a fashion shoot in Tooting to promote the event, with Bo’s partner Steve Gabbett taking the photographs.

Bo (short for Bozena) lives in Batley with Steve and their five cats. As a child in Poland, she created an imaginary world designing and cutting out paper clothes for her paper dolls. She moved to the UK when she was 21, trained to be an accountant and worked in the NHS for many years. She became a designer in 2010 after entering a Leeds Fashion Week competition to find new talent, and quickly found her niche as an independent ethical designer. She now works as an office administrator, alongside designing and making her collections in her studio, using organic fabrics and vegan materials. In 2013 she won Most Talented New Designer at the Peta UK Vegan Fashion Awards, and is a longtime and respected pioneer of sustainable fashion.

Her latest collection, called Gnarly, was shot by Steve in Berlin and features prints created in the city by a company that uses recycled cottons, satins and chiffons. Soon she will be creating her own prints by collaborating with that same company for her next collection, and is in talks with actors and comedians about modelling the clothes.

Every garment in the Gnarly collection is named after a 1980s musician or icon, including Stevie Nicks, Kylie Minogue, Whitney Houston, Bonnie Tyler, Sinead O’Connor, Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, Belinda Carlisle and Sade.

Bo says: “I love the Seventies, and I love making clothes with a Seventies vibe, and I always thought the Eighties was quite rubbish, but I wanted to turn the bits of Seventies I like into Eighties. So it evolved itself and I started falling in love again with the Eighties bright colours. I realised that, actually, there was some good stuff going on in fashion in the Eighties as well.

“I spend far too much time thinking of names for garments, but I enjoy that aspect of it and there were so many cool musicians in the Eighties.”

She is used to seeing her designs on screen (only last month, the comedian and writer Sophie Duker wore a beautiful printed Bo Carter dress on BBC2’s Richard Osman’s House of Games) and feels the collaboration with comedians has proved to be creatively rewarding.

“All these women are very different,” she says. “They make me aware of how I am still improving and need to create more inclusive fashion. Working with different people is always interesting.

“They have so many powerful messages, and my fashion as well is not just about the clothes. I want to bring politics, and there is always an agenda to it.”

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Bo is taking a northern team of creatives, including make-up artists and videographers, plus three students from Leeds Arts University, down to London with her for the shows . She plans to bring Fashion Loves Comedy back to Yorkshire next year if she can find funding to support the project. “I can’t do that on my own,” she says.

“There are so many moments when I pinch myself over Fashion Loves Comedy and having so many incredible people involved in it,” she says. “It’s pure magic”.

Fashion Loves Comedy takes place March 7-10 in London. Tickets on TicketTailor. All clothes at BoCarter.co.uk