IT is a taboo subject many women would shy away from making public, preferring to keep their suffering behind closed doors.

But fashion designer Emily Cassidy has used her experience of domestic abuse to inspire her final degree collection and help give other survivors a voice.

The Heriot-Watt University student survived a three-year, abusive relationship while living abroad and was diagnosed with PTSD on her return.

Her collection expresses her personal experience with domestic violence by using the colours, objects and shapes she experiences during flashbacks and nightmares.

It is titled 3IN1 for the fact 1 in 3 women worldwide will experience violence at the hands of a partner, according to estimates made by the World Health Organisation.

Most of this violence is intimate partner violence. Worldwide, almost one third of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical or sexual violence by their intimate partner in their lifetime.

Ms Cassidy, who is based in Edinburgh, said: "I was in an abusive relationship for around three years, and when I got out of that I found myself distant from the way domestic abuse is portrayed in the media. Campaigns to help victims just isolated me.

"All the campaigns and depictions of domestic abuse on TV focus on hospital admissions, or police reports or put the abuser at the forefront.

"But there are in one three women who experience experience violence at the hands of a male partner around the world. That's about one billion women, and one billion different experiences."

She added: "I didn't realise I was a victim at the time, but I was. I hope that by sharing my experience in this way other women who've gone through what I have may say 'that's my experience too' and get the help they need."

Ms Cassidy, 26, created 22 pieces for the collection, using a variety of fabrics. She said that creating the collection and putting her experiences to the forefront had helped her move on from her traumatic past.

She said: "What I have realised though this is it's not good not to talk about what happened to me.

"It wasn't until I got to university that I realised that I was doing an injustice to myself, and now I can get on with my life."