Yesterday I was lucky enough to be invited to the CSM grad show hosted at their brand new building in Kings Cross. Along with the Queen’s Jubilee and London’s up coming Olympics, it’s one of those things that makes you realise that being a Brit in 2012 is an amazing thing (ignoring the whole melting of our economy and the fact they’ve put parking restrictions outside my house).
The sun was shining, the steamers were steaming and fashion students were stressed, that means it’s the end of year show. And the clothes were sick.
Altogether 41 designers showed and they ranged from suave and slick to outrageous fantasy. The judges were Livia Firth, Lulu Kennedy (Fashion East), Christopher Shannon, Kay Barron, Corrie Nielsen, Head of College Jane Rapley, BA Course Leader Willie Walters and L’Oreal Professional Stylist Andrew Mulvenna. Here are my highlights:
This was brill. How can I explain Natalia Mencej’s show? Errr, six cool guys in slouchy cotching gear all holding pugs walking down the runway to Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg’s ‘Next Episode’? I think that hits the nail on the head. Woof.
Serena Gili’s elegant girls glided down the runway really slowly but that means you could see how ridiculously cool these skirts were. If it’s not clear, they were made of some sort of plastic and looked like the type of thing you could tap. Not too disimilar to a steamer. I’ve never seen anything like it and it looked like these girls were from the future, which is basically my favourite when it comes to anything.
These were amazing. Bright coloured knitted outfits that blended fantasy, incredible footwear and er, board games. Ruoxin Jin’s outfits looked like they took about a million years to create, so inspiring. Essentially I’m crap at drawing something like a circle so when I saw something like this, me, and the whole room smiled ear to ear.
I thought you might enjoy this picture of some students watching from above, hope I get to write about them in a couple of years!
After the show the winners were announced and there was a grand fairwell to the Head Of College. Professor Jane Rapley OBE had been at at Central St Martin’s since 1987, so you can only picture all the greats that she’d seen pass the world’s greatest fashion college. I’d watch that movie.
Another amazing year’s show at St Martins, and all without a crease in sight 😉
A great day to be a Londoner.
