Graduate Fashion Week, Strong Striking, but does it need a wow factor?
Now there is always an exception and I found it at Bristol on Tuesday night. A designer called Jack Wright sent down a Goth collection. It bordered on pretentious however it was well cut - striking black net gauze and silk wedding dresses all adorned with peacock feathers and sequins. The models wore dramatic headdresses and for a brief second you saw not only well cut distinctive pieces, but a full fledged capsule of a collection with the elements of real design.
Naturally throughout the week I saw “ones to watch” designers who either had design or commercial appeal, tese included designers from Surrey, Ravensboure, Berkshire and East London.
Menswear proved more popular than usual and the trend was tailoring, paired with knitwear and a heavy presence of urban wear. There were two designers that really caught my attention. An LCF designer who created rubber and PVC outfits paired with all in ones for men, not my taste, but he showed demonstrated originality and capitalised on the Graduate core trend, braces and straps. (They were everywhere!) The other was also an LCF designer who presented a menswear collection consisting of a reconstructed deconstructed suit.
Trends in women’s wear ranged from a heavy presence of silk jerseys (a student Favourite) in the style of figure hugging dresses or totally loose batwing 80’s style pieces. English Rose pretty prints were also very popular, as was heavy prints ala Jonathan Saunders- Heavy printing on silk to create a tie die or graphic effect.
Braces were the key accessory throughout the week and a further trend leaned towards 80’s sequins and the other student favourite, mass volume pieces that resemble duvets rather than clothes.
Knitwear was strong, ranging from spider web style dress; fine knit tops right to full on heavy chunk knit dresses that looked like giant torn miles of yarn.
The week was another chalked up success for a booming British Fashion Design industry, however the missing ‘wow’ could have a strong impact on a strong growth in fashion.
As a new wave of designers flood a market that is being adversely affected by shifting consumer tastes, the question is, “Can this group aide our fledgling ‘designer’ brands as well as a less popular high street?
text - Amar Thapen
Photos ? David Jones, courtesy of fuk.co.uk
Pages: 1 2
I just want to say that I loved GFW i thought it was fantastic, I loved the collections by some of the Uclan fashion students they were really different some were a little commercial but I loved sarah stanleys collection it was beautiful as was the african collection. I think Northhampton was dragged out, it was farrrrrrrr to long and quite frankly overated, some of the collections were average and had been seen before! LCF always good.But I believe a lot of the uni’s up north do dont get the credit that they are due and its a huge shame because most of the students in the north are british and no disrespect to foreign people but the majority of the london uni’s are full of foreign students as the uni’s get twice the student fee’s, foregive me but isnt the whole point of London Graduate fashion week to showcase homegrown British talent?! we need to support British talent or else they will end up in other countries studying fashion, we need to keep them here and support them. Thanks.
please could you add this link as a fashion talents data base
please could you add this link as events for the arts in london paris & new york
[…] Truth about Fashion; Interview with Designer Julian Roberts; Is part of Fashion Dying; Interview with Designer Ashish Gupta ; Graduate Fashion Week, Strong Striking but does it need a wow factor; Thigh High; Une Premiere; Interview with Designer Osman Yousefzada; Goodbye Winter, hello spring; Letting Go […]