Yao Zhang
Xianfen Gu
Tina Elisabeth Reiter
Joseph Turvey
Joseph Turvey
Jennifer Franziska and Maclennan Murray
Hye Rim Hong
Hana Cha
Charlotte Simpson
Show opener Xianfen Gu faced up to the not inconsiderable challenge with intricate laser-cut tailoring and blood-red stylized photo prints; tempering the mysticism of the Far East with the rigours of Savile Row. Decidedly masculine tailoring was knocked off-kilter with asymmetric fastenings and staggered hem lengths, or with some more of that paradoxically tough-yet-delicate cutwork lacquer panelling. A show-stopping red maxi dress – all plisse pleats, chiffon layers, spaghetti straps and dropped hems – readdressed the East/West dialogue, in fact, this was a theme that ran though many of the MA collections. Gu’s take stood out thanks to a considered reappropriation of androgyny, an edited colour spectrum (navy, cream, red and black) and the use of crisp white shirting – a stylistic technique that anchored the unexpected in the everyday.
There were textures a-plenty in Hye Rim Hong’s collection – from soft and fluffy mohair to brushed wool, stiffened silks and silver-shard embellishments. These were combined with ombre-spayed patterns and wide block stripes – but nothing felt excessive, overworked or laboured, due to Hong’s sensitive consideration of silhouette and proportion – which also followed the variational theme – layered and long or cocoon-like and curved. Contrast fabric panels and well-placed stripes distracted and confused the eye, and the designer utilsed such trickery to an advantage, creating complexity in the simple, and interest in the norm. Collection highlights included a cape-shift combo with a perfectly matched stripe, a tailored coat with textured sleeve and yoke, and a nude tunic replete with gold metal shavings.
Charlotte Simpson took Phoebe Philo’s directive on modern minimalism and gave it her own individual stamp. The resultant collection was elegant and refined with a rebel-London attitude – plunging v-backs and daring thigh-high drapes on a pleat-front, one shoulder maxi dress. A bead encrusted, swing back tunic looked particularly refined, so to did the pitch perfect jumpsuits and the curved fit metallic tops that married technical finesse with a sartorial flair. The jewel in Simpson’s crown was a floor-length cape that almost seemed to groan under the weight of its heavy bead embellishment. Fashion for fashions sake, but ultimately wearable – a well-thought out lesson in modern glamour.
Hana Chaa – winner of the Womenswear Collection of the Year accolade – showed a remarkably self-assured collection that was dominated by a pitch perfect palette (unsurprising then that post-show research revealed the designer had previously studied Fine Art). It comprised of black and aubergine-tinged purples, lifted with well-placed accents of gold and a punchy indigo blue, lending a surprising vibrancy to Chaa’s loose and unstructured silhouettes. Maxi and midi-lengths were anchored with longline boxy tailoring, wide leg shapes and deconstructed hem lengths. An expressive, painterly arc bought to mind Sonia Delaunay’s Ballets Russes collaboration – not a stretch when the collection is titled ‘Diffusion between Proletariats and Bourgeois’ and the designer herself claims it to be an exploration of fashion variances within class and society.
Second on schedule and winner of the Menswear Collection of the year award, Tina Elisabeth Reiter blended Dickensian-worthy vagrancy with whimsical borrowed-from-Austria style references – notably a soft leather all-in-one breeches and boots combo, held up by braces. Pleated bell-sleeve blazers, super-wide leg culottes cut to look like skirts and drop crotch gingham trousers contributed to a down-and-out wardrobe that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the flamboyant Artful Dodger. Reiter paired muted, and muddy of-the-earth shades with vibrant tangerine, the shade softened by cotton twills and repeat prints. Pattern also appeared in the form of gingham – on scarves tied round the neck with casual abandon, on shirts or curved sleeve panels. The vagrancy vibe culminated in frayed, knitted tunics and heavy wool great-coats – classic and traditional menswear silhouettes that managed to look fresh and exciting.
In a challenge to the established menswear code, Joseph Turvey emblazoned silk shirts, loose blazers, and relaxed T-shirts with his own, distinctive illustrations. The audience was confronted with powerful illustrated characters, complete with intense and unflinching stares and a tough-guy aura, an aura that was enhanced by the addition of street and sportswear inspired shorts and blazers. But this is a Turvey world, and nothing is quite as it seems – those shorts come in a lemon and white check, or in a hot-pink daisy lace. Textured knitted tops have alternate sheer and delicate inserts and come in clashing neon orange and pink, the in-your-face colours also repeated on relaxed tailored separates. Fun and jovial, yes, but this was a serious collection that thought around tradition without resorting to clichés, and perhaps, most crucially of all, presenting a collection that was up-beat, energetic and refused play by the established menswear rules.
Photography : Katy Davies
Posted by: Vicki Loomes
By the time we arrive backstage at Krystof Strozyna the clothes are labelled and waiting neatly organised on a rail whilst everything is undergoing the final finishing touches before the show.
The models are patiently having their hair teased and backcombed into a sixties-style bouffant by the team at Toni&Guy under the creative direction of Cos Sakkas.
“The look we’re going for is very Sharon Stone in Casino,” he tells me whilst demonstrating how it is achieved, “We take the volume from the crown, so long as you’ve got enough hairspray and mousse you’ll be fine!”
He shows me how they have used an elastic band to pull the hair off the face as opposed to an alice band which creates a more androgynous look which means its “a little off key and rawer” rather than too finished.
Krystof Strozyna show began with a scratchy glissando on the audio to announce the arrival of the first model. Paired down make-up, consisting of only white eyeliner created a bright-eyed look for spring, but this was offset by feminine dresses with a provocative use of cut-outs to reveal model’s backs. Working with colour palette of nudes, pastels and splashes of fuchsia the shift dresses are given an element of opulence with sheer fabric decadently draped over the shoulders.
Playing with different finishes and shapes, Kystof used a clean-cut tailored jacket to give a modern edge to oyster flares and overlaid a raw-edged denim jacket to a fuchsia bra which served to echo an eighties energy.
Images by Katy Davies
Posted by: Lauren Whitehead
Brett De Jager
Charlotte Barry
Ya-Chiao Sung
Yingzhi Luo – Chi Chi
Nadir Tejani
Nair Afonso Xavier
Johanna Pihl’s SS 11 collection acts as a second human skin by exploring the design of the human body and the defiling of this design with the concept of plastic surgery.
Jaeho Choi – Monotonous two-tone mensweae tailoring with a modern twist.
LCF BA 2011
The grunge-inspired distressed catwalk at Two Kingdom Street saw its stripped back walls bouncing with colour at this year’s London College of Fashion BA 2011 graduate show. Although, as with the rest of this graduate season, perhaps lacking in some areas such as individuality and innovation, the LCF graduate show saw an eclectic mix of trends – including sportswear, African-inspired prints and texture clashing – make their way down the runway, where some showcased advanced technical detailing that blended traditional craftsmanship with high spec modern technology. Detailed embellishment and texture development was the output of such technical skills, and perhaps restored what was lacking in the collections’ inability to differentiate themselves from past seasons.
At the end of the show, awards presented by industry professionals were given to Charlotte Barry for her advanced use of trimmings, Stine Riis for her use of textiles, and the Collection of the Year award was presented to Wun Wun Nova Chiu for her intricately embellished designs. These winning collections are the embodiment of the capabilities at LCF; each explore different trends, yet each displays the excessive amounts of talented craftsmanship that these young designers have employed.
Riis’s collection explored the decay of decadent, manmade structures. Here, the act of turning something of decay back into something of beauty is analogous to the Japanese tradition of filling the cracks of broken porcelain with gold. Her utilisation of distressed, fraying fabrics is what garnered the acclaim surrounding her award for outstanding use of textiles, whilst the collection itself exploits and opposes the limitations of the temporal fashion world by incorporating designs that transcend the test of time.
Wun Wun Nova Chiu, winner of the prestigious Collection of the Year award, based her elaborately embellished designs on the culture of Shangri-La valley in China, where she was born. These chinese elements are continued through the collection with authentic Chinese cutting techniques, painted Chinese ornaments and bells attached to the garments, and inverted A-line and oval silhouettes influenced by traditional Chinese architecture. The overall collection becomes one of extravagant decadence that embodies the Western Utopia that is intrinsically connected with Chiu’s upbringing.
Charlotte Barry’s collection, which won the award for best use of trimmings, is created to be both aesthetically pleasing and physically appealing by playing upon the desire for touch. The heavily embroidered collection, whose colour palette primarily consisted of golds and browns, saw pleated tulle mixed with heavier fabrics to create an elegant yet powerful femininity that can only truly be appreciated close up.
Elsewhere, the students who were not presented with one of the three awards were not forgotten. Ya-Chiao Sung rivaled the award winning collections with an equally dexterous embellishment. Here, heavy golden embellishments are attached to lighter chiffon and organza fabrics to supposedly symbolize the imposition of the industrial era upon the softer society that preceded Victorian society. The overall effect is a collection that transcends and questions the boundaries between the masculine and feminine physique.
Yingzhi Luo (Chi Chi)’s collection is again inspired by Chinese culture, but this time from Tibet, and is a far cry from Nova Chiu’s silver detailing. Both collections share a bright, vibrant colour palette – that Chi Chi specifically has ascertained from images she took herself in Tibet – but Chi Chi’s collection concentrates on mixing draped chiffons with oversized macramé detailing that is inspired by Tibetan women’s braided hair. Macramé masks were paired with the outfits to create an all-over jumbo-fringing effect that resulted in achieving multi-layered long-length pieces for summer.
In menswear, Brett de Jager lead the pack with his collection “Punx on Safari” that takes some of the shapes and silhouettes of the 70s punk trend and mixes them with African prints and a safari vibe to draw parallels between the two seemingly distant cultures. Here, vibrantly illustrated prints are mixed with draping and texture clashes to highlight the free-spirited individuality that the two sub-cultures share. Zebra-print safari boots are wrapped with studded leather belts to encapsulate the look.
Nair Afonso Xavier brought the bright colour blocking trend into menswear, where dressed down forms of the business suit are mixed with bicycle shorts to create a sportswear collection suitable for city businessmen who cycle into work. The collection provides both aesthetics and functionality, where breathable coatings, waterproof fabrics and moisture wicking surfaces make the outfits suitable for all weathers.
Nadir Tejani stood out from the other vibrant collections with his wholly black ensemble. Personality is drained from the monotonous collection with the oversized silhouette that Tejani creates, offering its wearer a privacy that is unavailable in today’s voyeuristic, judgmental society. The geometric shapes that conventionally make up the human body are distorted and diffracted to the viewer, whose perception of the body – as with rays of light – becomes a misguided image of reality amongst the oversized draping of Tejani’s collection.
See the rest of the London College of Fashion BA graduates here:
http://www.fashion.arts.ac.uk/2011/
Tom Bloomfield
Runway images by Katy Davies
Posted by: Tom Bloomfield
Hannah Taylor
Calum Harvey
Anna Schwamborn
Paul Stafford
Image below: Samuel Membery
RCA 2011
Another year, another set of hopeful designers ready to launch into the industry. The 2011 Royal College of Art Graduate Fashion Show saw thirty-six postgraduate students parade their collections down the catwalk in hope of ascertaining a place in the much desired fashion world. High-street store Esprit launched the show with their new limited-stock collection that asked the students to design items around the brief “Can Fashion be sustainable?”, and shortly after followed the fourth collaboration with Italian label Brioni, who challenged first year Menswear students to design a contemporary tailored coat.
However, it was the collections of the postgraduates that the press-filled audience came to see, and after what I can only assume has been weeks of rushing, sewing, cutting, knitting, screaming and crying, there was certainly a lot on offer. AW11 favourites cropped up across the womenswear and menswear collections, with some designers mixing soft fabrics and leathers, and others experimenting with bright, bold colours, tassels and sequins. The nomad explorer theme that has grown in the past two seasons also appeared in some student’s collections, whilst others played upon a classical British style, and some drew inspiration from across the pond.
The menswear collections were exceptionally strong, with many taking traditional fabrics and applying modern cutting techniques to question and transform the status of masculine style. Womenswear followed closely behind, with some experimenting in industrial and discarded materials, and many manipulating the conventional feminine silhouette.
Menswear designer Hannah Taylor stood out with her balaclava-clad models storming the catwalk, reminiscent of Kokon to Zai’s AW11 show. Heavy oversized cable knits were mixed with dense fur-imitation knitwear and in-your-face bold colour clashes to produce a half-Rastafarian, half-Navajo Indian vibe. Oversized items dominated the collection, with a standout piece being a sleeveless cable-knit jumpsuit.
Elsewhere Calum Harvey and Samuel Membery notably took on classic British tailoring with a modern approach. Harvey had both male and female models don fedora hats to highlight the transitional elements of his 1920s cross-dressing-inspired collection, whilst oversized, flamboyant cravat-like shirt detailing tied together the sexually ambiguous look. Membery emulated a more masculine style in his collection, using multiple square-cut layers to break up the linear structure of the body and soften the classic tailored style. Two-tone trousers helped to develop the juxtaposing linearity of the outfit whilst in keeping with the monotonous palette.
Anna Schwamborn’s nomad explorer inspired collection seemed to stand out from the crowd with her large structural bags making a huge statement for feminine fashion. Structured bronze rings outlined the contours of the body, and suedes and leathers battled drapey, translucent chiffons to create the dramatic vibe of the elegant yet tough desert explorer. Chiffon, as usual, was a favourite amongst several designers, including Victoria Hill, Katie Hildebrand and Hannah Buswell, where it was mixed with heavier fabrics such as leathers, knits and velour. It also became the focus of Paul Stafford’s magnificent millinery wear, where large architectural head pieces saw chiffon plunging from their edges and gathering at the waist to become a top or a dress. Other emerging trends throughout were the use of industrial materials such as thick PVCs and plastics, the use of tassels upon knitwear, and a notably well-made American vintage prep collection from Sol Ahn.
Images courtesy of RCA.
Posted by: Tom Bloomfield
