Learner Spotlight | Grace Liou - Fashion Designer, Undine Palace
- Oct 2
- 3 min read
At CAD for Fashion, we love celebrating the journeys of our learners and how digital tools help unlock their creativity.
This month, we’re shining the spotlight on Grace Liou, founder of the emerging brand Undine Palace, whose designs are inspired by storytelling, nature, and folklore.
Grace’s creativity stems from a love of storytelling. She draws inspiration from nature, myths, folklore, and fairytales, weaving these influences into her fashion designs. Her work often features prints, colour, and thoughtful details, from ruffles to hand-drawn prints to beautifully draped fabrics. Beyond fashion, she also draws inspiration from fictional books, cinema, historical costumes, and illustration.
Grace joined CAD for Fashion to build hands-on experience with industry-standard tools and strengthen her digital textile and 3D garment design skills.
In a 1-to-1 session with Stephen, she learned to create patterns in Adobe Firefly and set up textile repeats in Photoshop, building confidence in digital print design.
Through Laura’s 4-week CLO3D course for Fashion Designers, she explored 3D garment simulation, which enabled her to visualise and share designs before producing physical samples.
Using these skills, Grace created her own original repeat animal textile print in Photoshop and designed a bathing suit in CLO3D, which quickly gained popularity on social media. The digital workflow has helped her work faster, more creatively, and more sustainably.
"Taking classes with CAD for Fashion has transformed how I approach design. Without CAD for Fashion, I would have developed these skills more slowly. The expert guidance accelerated my mastery of textile and 3D fashion design, allowing me to confidently apply them to my own work for my brand, Undine Palace." Grace Liou
Grace is about to launch her debut collection, Born to Frolic, inspired by deer. The release will be staggered, beginning with swimsuits and cover-ups this October as a soft launch, followed by dresses in November 2025. With such a strong response so far, she’s excited for a successful and memorable debut for Undine Palace.
I have been very fortunate to take more than one class with CAD for Fashion, and each has been an amazing experience. Earlier this year, I had a 1-to-1 tuition session with Stephen on Print & Textile Design. He was such a pleasure to learn from and incredibly helpful in showing me the ropes of using Adobe Firefly to generate pattern ideas and arranging motifs in Photoshop for textile repeats, all within a single class.
More recently, I completed Laura’s 4-week CLO3D for Fashion Designers course and it was amazing! Laura is an enthusiastic and patient instructor who carefully explains each tool and guides you through the learning process. As someone who doesn’t always pick up new technology quickly, I walked away feeling confident with my new skills and was able to apply them right away by sharing my 3D designs online with my followers before making physical samples. This approach also helped me save on fabric and provided a more sustainable way to develop ideas digitally before moving into production.
As a working professional in the U.S., I really value the flexibility of taking these classes online. Even though CAD for Fashion is based in the U.K., the accessibility has been seamless—they accommodated my time zone, and the class platform, Hurdle, made it easy to follow along and stay engaged.
A special thank you to Erica for her kindness and support by email throughout the learning process—her attentiveness made the experience even smoother. I can’t recommend these instructors or classes highly enough from CAD for Fashion!
Would you like to be our next Learner Spotlight?
We will share your story and portfolio on our platforms, providing an opportunity to showcase your achievements!
If you are interested, fill out this form and expect to hear from us soon!
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