ECA at Graduate Fashion Week

An overview of the work exhibited by students of Edinburgh College of Art, at London's Graduate Fashion Week

Feature by Rena Niamh Smith | 27 Jun 2012

On Sunday, the Edinburgh College of Art students showcased their graduate collections at London’s Graduate Fashion Week. Highly individual and excellently executed work, each young designer displayed a three-dimensional concept brand rather than mere groups of garments.

For Dan William James Prasad, this was a sleek, tailored menswear line in deep blue with extremely covetable man-bags in rich leather. Louise Bennetts offered a draped collection using multiple layers of fine texture in peach, orange and neutral with a see-through plastic on top. Raj Mistry’s sporty menswear in electric green and purple was a fun approach to practical garments, while Ainslie Hogg used sumptuous, oriental, silky textures to dramatic, feminine effect in rich shades of scarlet, rose and apricot, with flashes of mint thrown in. Eva Ng’s dark, sculptural tailoring was feminine too, but with a darker, more controlled feel. It is this commercial understanding as well as practical skills that will see Edinburgh students though to employment, either within bigger companies or under their own names.

Some students such as Jacqueline McLardie showed more sumptuous, sexy shapes - her gowns had fitted bodices and loose flowing skirts. However, even with these, there was a sense that models were comfortable, not something every graduate manages to pull off, and that the pieces could easily be taken from catwalk to closet.

Course director Malcolm Burkinshawe later explained that it was by working with Caryn Franklin’s All Walks Beyond The Catwalk initiative that gave students this edge. The project is aimed at celebrating diversity on the
catwalk, not just in body shape, but in skin colour too. Rather than simply design on paper, students worked directly with models and were encouraged to think about the changes and challenges real women experience and how this affects what they choose to put on. By concentrating on the concept of clothes as a lived experience rather than stage fantasy, the Edinburgh student gains a brilliant set of skills, not only to join the fashion industry, but perhaps also to help build a better one.

http://www.gfw.org.uk