In the setting of the great Banking Hall, London College of Fashion’s MA graduate show featured ten of their most up and coming designers, showcasing everything from exotic silhouettes and oversized knitwear to redesigned tailored suits.
One of the standout young designers was Bethany Williams. Working in partnership with supermarket giant Tesco and Vauxhall food bank (donating 30% of the production profit back to the food bank), Williams swapped expired food items for unwanted clothes. She used the scraps of fabric to create the pieces for her collection, meaning all are completely recycled. This is an extremely hand-rendered collection; coats woven from unwanted cardboard to soaking the material and fusing it to organic cotton. She manages to make the text from the Tesco Value range look remarkably exotic.
Another interesting concept came from Jekeun Cho. He based his collection around the idea of depression and the (apparent) suicide of Robin Williams in 2014. Cho believed the comedian had suffered in silence for years. Therefore the designer used plastic hands covering the models mouths to symbolise this. ‘Externally he looked perfectly happy, but there was definitely depression inside’, says Cho; and this is the statement he hopes his collection will reflect. Whilst the colours of the clothes are bright and fun, the shape of the design slumps on the models’ shoulders, their faces expressionless.
Jessie Gardiner
