Starting out with a HND in Tailoring and Pattern Cutting and HNC in Pattern Design, Savage has overcome the ultimate designer dilemma of balancing unbridled creativity with acute business skills. "Half of you has to be a business head," she says, "and the other half creative. It's only through discipline that I've learnt how to switch on one side and switch off the other." Karen is sitting on her Union Jack settee inside her studio-come-flat in London's Curtain Road. Although originally from Birkenhead she left Merseyside seven years ago because, "I couldn't have done what I have do there, ideas are too stunted. In London people are more experimental, there's more of a lifestyle culture."

Designers score their creative fixes from diverse sources but for Karen visual kitsch provides the ultimate high. "I love dolls," she confesses showing me an impressive collection of Barbies. "I remember playing with my Girl's World and being fascinated by it." Jesus and the Ever Virgin Mary are also popular Savage icons. Her bedroom features an impressive display of rosary beads, Jesus and Mary figures housed inside mini decorative coconuts, a 'Last Supper' wall clock and (my personal favourite) a Jesus plate with fairy lights.

Savage gleans inspiration from a strange marriage of everyday objects and social issues. Early collections include 'Playing At It' which explored the supposed innocence of feminine toys and patterns of female conditioning, and the explosive 'Sex Symbol- Sex Target' which tackled the myth of the woman as hunted and victimised. Her 'Flasher Mac' - a white plastic raincoat lined with porno pics is a perfect example of the Savage humour + social comment formula. "I decided I wanted to look at pornography for 'Sex Symbol- Sex Target' and I actually went into the collection thinking it was horrendous but I came out thinking it's not that bad."

Unlike most designers who make fabric choices central to their collections, Karen's work is ideas based. "I always pick a topic where I don't know where I stand and then I explore it." With the current collection 'Beautiful Is Painful' Karen sought to investigate the lengths women will go to for beauty. "I started visiting beauty parlours," she beams. "And I found one where you could try out all their treatments for £50. It was incredible - I had electro magnetic pads, vibrating machines, the lot."

The team (Karen works with Colin Barber, master of production and a fashion assistant, Amy) went to town with the colour palette on 'Beautiful Is Painful' including shades named bandage white and surgeon red. The collection will be shown during the forthcoming Fashion Week and there's plans for a 'Savage Happening'. Increasingly, Karen is moving away from the conventions of twice yearly fashion seasons "Because there's always visual meaning behind what we do," she explains. "I have a problem with seasons. I'm thinking of fucking seasons and just concentrating on one main concept each year."

Savage will also be producing a glitzy Christmas collection rather than a full-on autumn/winter one, ("'cos I love doing sparkly party stuff") and plans to pick on Marilyn as a subject. "It's going to be piss-takey glamour but also sexy." Since getting wired last year, Karen's outlook has been revamped. "Two thirds of my world is inside the computer now and I really want to explore how to manipulate my ideas through it." Watch out world, Savage will be launching some freaky fashion ideas in cyberspace shortly.

For further information please contact The Savage Studio 0171 729 7680.