We preview the designers showing at this year’s Graduate Fashion Week. Eyes peeled, you might just be wearing their lines in years to come.
Founded in 1991, we’ve been looking to Graduate Fashion Week to gauge the talent of tomorrow for a long time. A well respected event, over 30,000 people attend every June to see the best of our emerging talent from fashion design courses up and down the UK. With over 1000 students showing designs and 22 catwalk shows, there’s a lot to take in. Here, we’ve made the task a little easier for you with a preview from some names to watch next month.
Northumbria University: Victoria Vincent Barwood
What are you most looking forward to about GFW?
It’s a true celebration of British Fashion – the ultimate showcase for creative students. The atmosphere, the ideas, the styling, the audience – they all add up to an unforgettable experience.
Why do you want to be a fashion designer?
I feel totally alive when I design. It’s the only way I can fully express myself.
What’s your fashion ambition?
To work with one of the all-time greats of experimental, innovative fashion: Comme des Garcons, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake. They are visionaries who have been a constant source of inspiration to me.
Manchester School of Art: Laura Precious
What are you most looking forward to about GFW?
I have been looking forward to GFW for some time, and I am excited for the opportunity to make connections with industry professionals and likeminded creatives who are interested in my work.
Why do you want to be a fashion designer?
I have always had the need to create, and fashion provides the most natural outlet for me. I enjoy developing a theme and then seeing how it can be translated into garments, and combining the creative and technical elements.
What’s your fashion ambition?
My ambition within the fashion industry is to become a lead knit designer for a menswear label.
Winchester School of Art: Eloise Lancaster
What are you most looking forward to about GFW?
Having been a visitor to GFW last year I am thrilled to now have the opportunity to use this platform to showcase my work to the industry.
Why do you want to be a fashion designer?
I am inspired by how fashion reflects changes/developments in society. I want to influence the way people dress to create a unique identify for our era.
What’s your fashion ambition?
My aim is initially to work for a contemporary mens fashion brand to expand my knowledge and skills. With future aspirations of becoming a head designer of a major fashion house.
University of Central Lancashire: Deborah Beardmore
What are you most looking forward to about GFW?
A chance to present my final collection and see a response on a huge scale due to the wide audience GFW attracts.
Why do you want to be a fashion designer?
You can be truly creative and innovative in the denim and street sectors and this is where I feel I can express my skills as a designer and challenge perceptions through new silhouette creations, fabric manipulations and treatments and inventive details and trims within my collections.
What’s your fashion ambition?
To become a valued member of a creative team that helps to refresh and re-energise a brand/company and deliver new opportunities to develop in a dynamic and creative style.
Northumbria University: Annie Mckie
What are you most looking forward to about GFW?
I am really looking forward to Graduate Fashion Week as it is a chance to build opportunities. The anticipation of what might come as a result of the event is so exciting! I am also looking forward to the sense of achievement I can share with my course when we see all our hard work come together.
Why do you want to be a fashion designer?
I was drawn to fashion because everybody wears clothes and everybody has some form of opinion on it. It is part of our everyday lives and it is used as a way of self expression. I believe in good, strong design with a no frills approach which translates well into menswear.
What’s your fashion ambition?
My fashion ambition is to continue to design garments that are relevant and purposeful. I hope to continue to develop my own strong, personal style of design which I can then take through to brands that I admire.
Kingston University: Josh Read
What are you most looking forward to about Graduate Fashion Week?
I’m looking forward to the buzz of Graduate Fashion Week – it’s incredibly exciting to have an opportunity to showcase my work to some of the biggest names in the business. I’m excited by the things that it could lead to. It’s going to be a privilege to have that platform to show everyone what I’ve been working on for the past three years.
Why do you want to be a fashion designer?
I’ve always been interested in fashion. My mum has pictures of me as a very young child, drawing clothes on to pictures of people. I studied both art and fashion but have always felt a particularly strong pull to fashion. I love the fact people seem to wear their own personalities and I want to be part of shaping that. I’m attracted to the freedom it offers – you can do an awful lot in the world of fashion and there are no boundaries.
What’s your fashion ambition?
In my second year, I was lucky enough to work as an intern for leading US label Brooks Brothers in New York – the experience really taught me the way the fashion world works and I fell in love with the city. I’d love to establish myself as a designer there.