It is the monster catwalk to end them all: 55 minutes; 134 designers; the most extreme designs.
It is, of course, Central Saint Martins’ BA Fashion graduate collection, where four years of studying and industry placements culminates in six looks to represent each budding talent as they enter the fashion industry. In the lofty halls of the college’s Kings Cross building was a scene that might have played out at Hogwarts: hundreds of students piled onto three stories, peering over railings, balconies and through classroom windows to get a glimpse of their friends’ final hurrah. They were not disappointed.
The show opened with designer Joel Lines wearing a vast puppet of himself. There was a heart-in-mouth interlude when T.J. Finley threw bags of old cigarettes on an unsuspecting (and predominantly unimpressed) A-list front row, counting Grayson Perry, Damian Hurley and Zandra Rhodes, before it closed with Eden Tan, who crafted outfits from rolls of fabric which billowed into long trains as they traversed the runway.
Amongst all that was a bewildering mass of new ideas and soon-to-be-trends: 3D printed tops and bags were popular, furniture turned into accessories, extra long baguette bags came covered in hair, and there were antlers, number plates, stilts, spoons, wearable pianos, inflatable rings, taxidermy duck feather clutches — really, you name it.
Here, eight of the best from the Class of 2023 discuss how they made a sartorial splash.
Clover Nash
“Every year prior to this has either been spent partially in lockdowns, or on placement, so finally getting to fall head over heels for screen printing and dying was a long time coming. The results are a culture clash of White British sensibility and Black Afro-Caribbean joy. My collection looks like me! It looks like home, with nostalgic picturebook-style prints on prints on prints. It looks like a busy mind, and wears like a maternal embrace. It’s an ode to the family I have, and the yearning for the family I don’t. I’ve always struggled to find a sense of belonging as a mixed race, sickly, queer kid growing up in the North of England. Both of my grandmas were adopted, and my black ancestors were displaced by colonialism, so I’ve never had family history to ground myself in either. I only saw myself in fantasy worlds. Sentimentality is baked into these clothes, it feels like I’ve made a giant loaf of bread. Wish I could’ve slept more though.”
Ivan Delogu
“Creating my collection has been a journey that feels like giving birth, complete with fertilization, gestation, and labour pains, with mindful and intentional choices made along the way to protect and make space for the vision to materialise. It focuses on sustainability in fashion, and it’s made of upcycled materials such as ‘70s mosquito curtains, cereal bowls, garden fence net, seaweed, dead-stock shirt yarn, and a horseshoe — following my research explored the role of women in Sardinian society and the belief that Sardinia has a more matriarchal structure than the rest of Italy. I am thrilled with the final outcome. From the very beginning, I poured my heart and soul into every piece, striving to create something that was important to me.”
Inok Chung
“The collection is called ‘Count to Twenty’. It’s about playing hide and seek with menswear and masculinity — where to show, where to hide, where to reveal, where to highlight et cetera. It’s colourful, delicate, a bit awkward and playful. I used quite a range of materials which include suiting wools, denim, cotton, satin, leather, nylon, knit and beads because I love playing with different textures and weights, and I developed some prints through sun printing (a technique which uses sunlight as a developing or fixative agent). I’m quite satisfied with the outcome and I’m going to move on — it’s still quite intense emotionally because I feel sad to leave our little menswear studio, yet scared and excited to head to the industry.”
T.J. Finley
“My collection is called ‘Fags Forking The Rich’. With this title in mind, I built the collection around an abandoned windmill that I used to see out my bedroom window as child. It was beautiful with the textures and colour of ageing and neglect. The beauty is also in that it used to be a place where drug addicts would get shelter. The neglect and abuse working class people face from the system is something I am very passionate about bringing forward, and starting conversation to evoke change. My research consisted of looking at 18th century British Empire clothing, and manipulating these shapes with drape to create more dynamic structures. I went on to develop my materials by using cigarette buts and knitting them into fabric to make a cig textile, it was beautiful!”
Eden Tan
“Over the past year I have been making use of different materials that were going to waste — making bags, wallets, keychains from bike tyres; bags from rugs; bags from jackets and more. When it came to indulging myself in making something from virgin materials, I was thinking about how the designer of tomorrow would want to receive their second hand materials. This got me thinking about making a collection that provides solutions for an upcycler’s problems — the collection features six looks that have been made without removing any material from the fabric roll. Instead it uses folds, gathers and the odd slit here and there to edge close enough to archetypal clothes in the hope that people can suspend their disbelief that all they’re looking at is a roll of fabric wrapped around someone.”
Fauve Penketh
“I have been sourcing my vintage flags and materials for such a long time, the process is so rewarding when you see it transform into something new. Through exploring naval symbolism and reclaiming this in a female sphere, I travelled to and from Dorset collecting vintage flags and wind bitten materials — repurposing the flags was interesting because have such a male dominated and patriotic past, I find it liberating changing these materials into a symbol of feminism, joy and youthfulness. It’s the longest time I’ve had on a project so I learnt a lot about discipline and narrowing down the hundreds of different collections I wanted to create, into six looks.”
Tilda Fuller
“My collection has a modern folk look — a contemporary interpretation of traditional women’s craft, combined with an undertone of anti-patriarchal, satirical humour. My work is made up of crafts like patchwork, embroidery, cross stitch, and paper cutting which are all typically considered women’s domestic work and therefore of lesser importance. Historically women’s work has been confined to the domestic, resulting in women’s labour and feminine craft being undervalued. Women designers are substantially less likely to be recognised for creative genius than male designers. The largest proportion of low wage labour in fashion’s mass production is done by women. My work highlights craft that has gone unacknowledged and the invisibility of the hands that make it.”
Tilly Cox
“For my final collection, I explored the turbulent relationship within sisterhood. I merged my memories with expansive silhouettes and contrasted them with dancewear garment details. A culmination of sporty and feminine aesthetics. My favourite piece would have to be the ballet shoe sleeves which feature on look three, as it has both beauty and a tongue-in-cheek attitude. I initially took apart a pointe shoe and blew up the pattern, which became a challenge. After lots of trial and error with materials, shape and size, I was convinced that I wouldn’t be able to achieve the perfect shape. However, at the very last minute, it came together. Having a laugh and strutting around the studio with each other’s garments on has definitely been another highlight.”
