London's Central Saint Martins is usually praised for its ebullient shows: CSM's fashion graduates are always keen on experimenting with crazy shapes and silhouettes, bizarre materials turned into wearable (or unwearable…) designs and radically outré pieces.
Yet the first CSM's MA Fashion graduate show in two years, presented during London Fashion Week, should be remembered not just for the garments on the runway, but for the meanings behind them. Quite a few graduates highlighted indeed through their works the worries and passions of a new generation of talents rather than focusing just on their dreams of becoming part of a fashion system that too often reveals itself as a toxic place, ready to embrace you one day and destroy you the next.
This interest in using clothes to look at more vital themes probably came from the fact that these young designers were enrolled in their course when Covid-19 hit, changing their plans and lives.
Like all of us, they had to deal with a lot of difficulties: we all suffered from mental and physical isolation, but students in creative fields also had to overcome more practical problems, from difficulties in sourcing materials to being cut off from interactions with other creative minds. These pressures pushed some of the students to the limit, but also gave them the chance to think more about who they are and where they come from and this proved a winning formula for some of them, as showed during the fashion graduate runway.
Moving from his Afro-Latinx background, Edward Mendoza, who won the L'Oréal Professional Creative Award, focused on diversity with a colourful multi-textured collection inspired by the Caribbean and Peru, that at times seemed to evoke the bright and bold chaotic worlds of FEWOCiOUS' artworks.
Including denim designs with graphic prints and knitted pieces for men and non-binary people of all sizes, Mendoza made a refreshing point reminding us that fashion may have embraced curvy women, but it hasn't embraced plus size men yet, and that too often garments for larger sizes, rather than being fun and colourful, are just boring and generic. Also another student, Brais Albor from Spain, showed his collection on "plus-size" men and both Mendoza and Albor walked in their respective shows.
An investigation into her identity turned into an exploration of an entire community for Yemeni Kazner Asker.
Asker explored her community in Sheffield before working on her collection, investigating it with a documentary in which he interviewed people in Sheffield that inspired her a vision of an empowered Muslim woman (extracts from the interviews were then printed on the back of her garments.
The result was a collection – modelled by Asker's friends from Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, and Morocco – that combined traditional garments and sportswear.
Her abaya tracksuit may not be produced tomorrow, but sportswear companies are on the lookout for innovative and inclusive projects and they may be interested in developing with Asker a sportswear collection for Muslim athletes. But Asker may also end up developing something for a cool superhero film with a Muslim protagonist – her sporty abayas look indeed like superhero's capes.
Materials discovered in lockdown seemed another inspiring point: Brandon Choi was working at home and found himself immersed in packaging materials of the stuff he was ordering, so he combined Haute Couture patterns with cardboard and tape in his "Wear and Tear" collection, modelled by women of different ages.
Latvian graduate Alexandra Blinova was in a creative rut at home during lockdown and suffered of insomnia. Tired of staring at her curtainsm she tore them down Rossella O'Hara-style and came up with dresses and gloves; for this collection she continued her experiment in shredding fabrics and recombining them via hand-stitching.
Inspired by women making their own clothes in the GDR, and Coronavirus lockdown restrictions, Pauline Dujancourt decided to rely only on yarns and knitting needles. It may have been a disaster, but the results were instead poetical and romantic.
Quite a few designers explored the possibilities of transforming the body: Jessan Macatangay, the other winner of this year's L'Oréal Professional Creative Award (some of you may remember his 2020 BA graduate collection at Central Saint Martins that integrated scrap chairs into clothes via draping techniques) incorporated in his designs shapes that created three-dimensional effects on the models' bodies; Aaron Esh, inserted 3D printed elements in his jackets and trousers that altered their silhouettes and created also sculptural comma-shaped shoes.
Not everything was perfect and meaningful among the 32 collections showcased (and you can admire them at the "Shiny Shiny" exhibition at Lethaby Gallery, Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, London, till 2nd March) and there were puzzling moments with designs that betrayed a lack of sewing skills or that borrowed from the usual suspects, including Margiela and J.W. Henderson. Whenever that happens you wonder if there is a way for educational institutions to do more to educate or re-educate their students to find their own style, language and glossary.
In conclusion, though Covid-19 has been a terrible ordeal, it may have pushed young fashion students to go into uncharted territory or explore fashion from other points of view. Most of these graduates seem indeed to conceive fashion as a medium that may lead them to other projects (Mendoza, for example, has a passion for textiles and is also a skilled ceramicist), rather than as a final aim, which is what may save them from becoming the next casualty on the fashion chopping board.
