Technicolour dreamer: Louise Gray is Scotland's rainbow warrior

Louise Gray's office, in a boxy studio in a far-flung corner of the London College of Fashion, is a hoarder's paradise. Around two walls of the cramped space, clothes rails are crammed with her S/S 2010 collection. Packing boxes containing A/W 2010 are heaped in one corner. Along a third wall run shelves piled high with boxes of buttons, ribbon and sequins, alongside graffiti-sprayed box files somewhat incongruously labelled 'tax returns' and 'invoices'. Every spare inch of wall space is layered with images – elaborately costumed tribesmen from Sierra Leone, a weeping Pierrot, a Frida Kahlo self-portrait, Buddhist prayer flags fluttering on a mountainside. This colourful chaos is proof that Gray, known for her bold use of pattern, colour and texture, is the living embodiment of her brand.

When we meet, the diminutive Scot is dressed in her own designs, a blue and yellow layered chiffon top and a lace skirt worn over a pair of faded and ripped jeans, her dyed blonde hair hanging loose around an impish face. On her feet are bright Nicholas Kirkwood sandals – she has collaborated with him on several of her past collections – and her toes are splodged with hundreds of multicoloured dots of nail varnish. She has, she says, always been obsessed by colour.

The third of four sisters, Gray, 28, grew up near the fishing town of Fraserburgh on the northeast corner of the Aberdeenshire coast. There, in a small house in the middle of four fields, she and her sisters would dress up in her mother's 'zany 1980s clothes and romp around the fields'. She chuckles at the memory. 'We also used to wear old clothes and go and throw mud at each other, but we did dress up from this box of my mum's hilariously 1980s bits.'

A love of all things 1980s characterised her teenage years. 'I watched Michael Jackson and Madonna music videos all the time. My mum really wanted me to be into Take That. I think she thought it was quite strange that I wasn't. But I cut off the fingers of my lace bridesmaid's gloves to be like Madonna. I remember choosing all my outfits – I always wanted pink and yellow, and everything not matching – and I was obsessed with getting my ears pierced but my mum wouldn't let me. So with my pocket money I'd buy all these really big dangly earrings and wear them on my clothes and go to the roller disco with loads of jingle-jangle on.'

Gray did her time in the family business set up by her grandfather, making refrigerated trailers for the fishing trade, but left school at 17 ('I was really crap at school, I hated it, I just wasn't interested') for the Glasgow School of Art, where she explored her love of textiles and embroidery. 'They had the most amazing archives from the 1800s onwards, it was just ludicrously inspiring and I got obsessed by sewing.'

That carried her to Central Saint Martins, where she was determined to study for an MA they didn't actually offer. 'They only had a print textiles option, so at my interview they were like, "What do you want from us? We don't do embroidery," and I was like, "Well, I want to do it and I want to do it here." ' Her gumption paid off and they altered the curriculum to accommodate her. Her years at Central Saint Martins were 'amazing, so fun. But really scary – even now when I walk past it I'm still quite scared. It has this hold on you where you know the people who have been there before you. It all seems very important and has such a reputation. You definitely feel, like, "Holy shit!" '

She graduated in 2006, with plans to work as a textile designer for other people, having already spent four seasons working for London-based Danish designer Peter Jensen, doing hand embroidery. But she was immediately persuaded to start her own label by Lulu Kennedy, founder of Fashion East, which each season gives up to three young designers a bursary, catwalk show production, PR support and advice to help them start their labels, and was responsible for launching the careers of Gareth Pugh, Marios Schwab and Jonathan Saunders, among others. 'I always imagined I'd work for other people but Lulu said, "We're going to launch you," so I thought, "Crap. Well, might as well!" ' She laughs at her lack of ambition and is quick to acknowledge the support she received from Kennedy and others. 'I'm in my fourth year now and I feel like I've grown up doing it. London's an amazing place to be a designer; everybody wants to help you or has somebody they want you to meet. It's very supportive.'

For her part, Kennedy says: 'Louise stood out right from the start, her MA collection was the best thing I'd seen in years – it was so original and vibrant. She's since developed a fantastic signature and cult following. I love her free spirit and can-do attitude, she is so positive and generous. She represents London perfectly.'

As Fashion East celebrates its tenth anniversary this month, Gray has created a surprise for Kennedy. A patchwork fanatic, she has gathered fabric samples from all the designers Kennedy has given a start to and made her a quilt. 'I think she's going to die when she sees it,' she beams. 'We're going to keep the back plain and when we give it to her we're all going to sign it. She's going to get lots of things but I thought that we should all do something to give back. It's really amazing, I love it – of course, I'm not sure what she's going to do with it, I'm not sure if she'll have it on her bed or have to put it away. There's bits of Gareth's that you wouldn't want to cuddle up to...' she roars with laughter.

Softly spoken, Gray is not self-deprecating but has a total lack of self-importance about her work. This week she will hold her first solo show, having previously shown her collections either in group shows with Fashion East, or in solo presentations (which were considered by many to be the highlight of LFW – her A/W 2010 presentation at the Portico Rooms at Somerset House featured a DJ in a bright blue furry coat playing booming dance music and models dancing around the room. 'I think people definitely understood more what I was trying to do,' she says. 'That kind of fun. I don't want to lose that by doing runway.' She receives NewGen sponsorship from the British Fashion Council (it is also thanks to this that she has her current studio at the LCF for a year – past beneficiaries include Alexander McQueen, Matthew Williamson and Giles Deacon) and also from Cotton USA.

Her clothes have sold in the past at Debut in New York, as well as at stores in California, Japan, France and perhaps surprisingly, given the eye-catching nature of her collections, Dubai. In the UK she sells via Asos.com, with whom she has collab-orated for two seasons; this season it will also be selling her main line. For Gray, the fit is a comfortable one. 'I love the idea that it's all just online and there's not a store, that there are ginormous warehouses somewhere filled with my clothes. But it's a completely different thing to get your head around that people just shop online. It's really strange.'

She has the glow of someone intensely happy with their lot, although this may be due to more than excitement about her work. In August she and her husband Christopher celebrated their first wedding anniversary. The couple met through work – he is a brand consultant for Nicholas Kirkwood – and they live a ten-minute walk from her Hackney studio. 'I feel quite bad for my husband actually,' she says with a guilty giggle, 'because it's a bit like this,' she gestures at the endless knick-knacks surrounding us. 'I've spray-painted all the furniture and there's loads of embroideries everywhere. The poor guy must be thinking... "What's going on?" I'm just a hoarder. I'm sure everybody else would think they're rubbish but I just love them. I love raking around trying to find bits and bobs.'

She applies a similar philosophy to her work, which is fêted for its vibrancy and fearless combinations of colour and pattern. Key looks from her A/W 2010 collection are two boldly dyed sheepskin yeti coats. Does she ever worry that her clothes might need to become more commercial as the label grows? She shrugs. 'I try to create a world for the customer. I don't want to design dresses just because they sell. I like to have fun with it and if I didn't do those things, I don't think I'd want to do it.' She considers the coats, 'and people do like those – I dread seeing lots of people wearing them at Fashion Week. But,' she starts to shake with laughter, 'they're perfect for a Scottish winter. Everyone in Fraserburgh is going to be dying for one!'