Glasgow School of Art Fashion Show 2013

Preview by Alexandra Fiddes | 04 Mar 2013

The Glasgow School of Art undergraduate fashion show has been organised and produced by students since the 1940s, and is now one of the city's most loved annual cultural highlights. On 5 and 6 March, the GSA Fashion Show will return, exhibiting third-year students' work in both textile and fashion. Through the fashion show, the third-year students as a yeargroup will raise funds to finance their trip to the New Designers exhibition in London, July 2014 - a vital showcase opportunity.

This year, with the re-development of the GSA campus in full swing, the show will be housed in The Arches. Garments will be shown in a traditional catwalk format, in front of a crowd of fellow students, friends, family and fashion press alike, all on the lookout for new 'ones-to-watch.'

The work produced by the textile students was a response to a project in affiliation with The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, celebrating The Ballet Russes. The aim was to produce a collection of textile designs for a ballet performance as well as the GSA fashion show. The students used The Rite of Spring, a ballet and orchestral work written for the 1913 Ballet Russes company by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, as a starting point. Through personal colour research, sketching and exploration of textile techniques (in their chosen specialism of print, weave, knit or embroidery), the students have created beautiful and diverse work.

Varied themes and inspirations within The Rite of Spring were taken forward by the students. Inspirations include cellular structures and tree textures, seen in the extremely visually appealing fabric by Vanessa Hindshaw, fruit and seed forms used as a starting point by Ashleigh Lindsay to create fun, bright embroidery pieces, as well as the relationship between nature and architecture, apparent in the stunning and wonderfully tactile work by Francesca Stride, that incorporates pieces of plastic into the knit itself.

Over on the other side of the studio, the third-year fashion students were working from a different starting point, the theme of androgyny. Exploring shapes and proportions in relation to the human body, they needed to produce design drawings, fashion illustrations, fabric research and samples, making sure they tested any complex or unusual construction techniques. The fabric used in this project was supplied by sponsor Harris Tweed. Students could however, supplement this with other fabrics, such as those they had embellished or made.

Fashion student highlights on the night are sure to be the work of students such as Chris Hargan who looked to the British aristocracy as well as traditional African culture as an inspiration for his garments, and also the urban architecture inspired collection by Matthew Allen, who uses classic tailoring alongside more unexpected aspects like lime green stitching and fur.

The Glasgow Fashion Show 2013 is sure to be a must-attend event, and will sell out fast, so grab your tickets now! You will also be able to see behind-the-scenes photos on The Skinny magazine website after the show itself.

7 pm & 9pm on 5 Mar 7pm & 9pm on 6 Mar Tickets £7 (£5) available from The Arches, Tickets Scotland, GSA Shop and the Art School bar The fashion show is in association with Dr.Martens, Mandors and Vidal Sasson. http://www.gsa.ac.uk