Nicola Lucas felt like she had kissed her fashion career dreams goodbye when she accepted a job in Bermuda.

She’d been hired as a nanny for a British family but was offered work as a patternmaker for such UK high street brands as Dorothy Perkins and Jigsaw.

“I loved my job in fashion and knew that was what I wanted to do, but something pulled me to Bermuda,” Mrs Lucas said.

“I had also already told the family, ‘Yes I will come out with you’.

“In my head I was going to come over here to work, have a good time and travel back to London maybe a few years later, but within three weeks I met my husband [Ben] and have been here for 17 years now.”

Mrs Lucas is now getting a second shot at fashion through her childrenswear line, Aqua Designs.

She makes custom dresses, aprons and hats for girls, and shorts and ties for boys.

And she gets it all done with three children at home.

“I’m out here in my workroom a lot in the evenings,” she said. “My children are really good about giving me time to sew because ever since they were really little I would bring them out here so they could see what I was doing.

“The youngest is six now and the oldest is 11 so sometimes I have to come out here after I pick them up from school. They will get their homework done and play or sometimes I set up a table and they work out here with me.”

She said her children — Rory, Cameron and Callie — were a huge inspiration when it came to the collection.

“My children love bright colours and I like bright colours myself so that has become an important part of my designs,” she said.

“My middle son is also very artistic and creative and will tell me when something doesn’t work or if it does, while my daughter inspired me with the QR code, which is now on the labels of the garments and business cards. She was learning about the codes at school and said I could use them on the swing tags so when people scan them on their smart phones it takes them straight to the Aqua Designs website.”

The New Zealand native was always drawn to sewing.

She was around seven when she started making clothes for her Barbies. She landed her first job at age 17, hired to put the collars on shirts, or pockets on pants on a factory assembly line.

“I don’t know how I learnt because my mom doesn’t sew at all,” she said. “I guess a lot of it was self-taught because both of my grandmothers who sewed lived far away and I really liked it and wanted to do fashion design when I left school.

“I did my two-year certification in fashion design and won some awards that my husband laughs at because I still have them up on the wall of our home.”

Mrs Lucas spent five months working as a camp counsellor in America after college. She then moved to the UK.

She found jobs in patternmaking and computer-aided design at distinguished British fashion houses Nicole Farhi and French Connection. She then decided to shift gears and accept the nanny position, which lasted for just 20 months.

The 42-year-old found work first, as an interior decorating consultant, and then in marketing. It led to several opportunities to make custom wedding and evening dresses for women.

These days the stay-at-home mom spends most of her spare time working to expand Aqua Designs.

She’s handmade party bags for her children’s birthday parties as well as pirate bandannas and capes to play dress up in. Her children still treasure some of those pieces, Mrs Lucas said.

“In the last few years I’ve started designing my own fabrics and getting them printed in the United States,” she said.

“It’s a lot more expensive than the other cottons, that’s why I only use it for trims and things. But I definitely want to do some more Bermuda-themed pieces and want to approach some of the hotels and resorts to see if there’s interest in them selling my goods in their shops.”

Mrs Lucas said it’s a gratifying feeling to be back in the fashion realm again.

“This is my thing and what I’m good at,” she said. “I’m not a super fast runner and can’t work out mechanical issues, but I am good at being creative.

“It’s fulfilling to make something that people are going to use and that they’re going to have forever. I’ve had other people say to me ‘My daughter has been wearing [your dress] for two or three years’.”

Visit www.aquadesignsbermuda.com