I had a great time wandering around the London College of Fashion graduates' exhibition on Carnaby St and just had to take a few sneaky pics (feeling extremely criminal whilst I furtively snapped them).
I liked Shooq AlShawi's unisex collection (2nd photo from the top) which featured lots of black, cream & neutrals, some nice trenches in there. Sophie Shiers' dresses were interesting (she designs separate dresses for individual shapes eg hourglass/pear/column. Loved her hourglass dress! Drooled over Charlotte Turner's vintage styles (with dress names including Audrey, Betty & Ginger). And the shoe designers! Faves were Hannah Martinez' super-embellished heels, covered in pearls, chain & safety pins (top pic), and Elizabeth Dunn's nature-inspired shoes. Another name to note was Jonathan Charlesworth - his shoes are evocative works of art (see below)!What I didn't get was that whilst the shoe & accessory designers had their work displayed quite nicely, many of the clothing was just slung over a hook on a wall - not even on a coathanger to give them some shape - so you couldn't really see them properly (see picture directly above for an example).
I thought that was a bit of a shame. If I had my work displayed like that, I would have been quite disappointed by how it was presented - even though I'm sure it was a huge honour for those selected to have anything from their collection shown as part of the exhibition.
However, it did mean that I then looked them up on the College of Fashion's website to see better photographs. I don't know if this was their intention but from a marketing perspective, I don't think it was very well done. Sure, I followed up by checking out the graduate's portfolios online, but how many others would have done that, I wonder?
I highly recommend that you pay a visit to check these hot new talents out.
