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Another shining crop of students confirms
British pre-eminence in the supply of design talent, says
Hilary Alexander
Stefano Pilati, the young creative director
of Yves Saint Laurent in Paris, could hardly take it in.
He wandered from stand to stand before the Gala Awards
show at Graduate Fashion Week, repeating: "I can't
believe it. This is all the work of students? It's amazing."
His reaction was understandable. Most
people attending their first Graduate Fashion Week event
are bowled over by the sheer numbers, the extraordinary
explosion of creativity and the breadth of talent on show.
"I definitely think the only valuable
fashion schools in the world are the British ones,"
Pilati said. "The edgy quality of these British-trained
designers defines a real fashion culture - pushing forward,
full of creativity and very different from any others
in Europe. They are the only ones that enjoy the pure
sense of fashion."
Now in its 14th year, Graduate Fashion
Week long ago entered the record books as the world's
largest platform for student fashion. Its reputation is
well-deserved for there is, quite simply, nowhere else
like it on Planet Fashion. This year, under one white-tented
roof in Battersea Park, the work of more than 1,000 BA
graduates from 35 colleges and universities - and just
as many countries - was on show, in every discipline from
knitwear, tailoring and textile design to illustration,
journalism and retail marketing.
If you wanted to glimpse the future of
fashion, this was the place to be. Parents cheered and
talent-scouts peered - among them, spotters from Hermès,
Gucci, Abercrombie & Fitch, Browns Focus, Liberty
and Marks & Spencer.
Although the individual college shows
were slick and well-focused, with each offering at least
one exceptional collection, the Gala Awards stole the
limelight. His 'n' hers streetwise sportswear won Jesse
Noy of Bristol the Gold Award - and prize money of £20,000
from River Island, the new sponsor of Graduate Fashion
Week. Kerrie Scott, from Northampton, scooped the Zandra
Rhodes prize for her rainbow-bright collage-knits and
multi-coloured printed skirts, while Alexa Davies, from
Westminster, whose cobalt-blue-from-head-to-foot collection
turned her models into glorious bluebottles, took the
award for the best use of colour.
The 2005 student fashion season reached
its climax on Thursday night with the presentation of
the Royal College of Art's 29 MA graduate collections.
With fabulous knitwear, extreme tailoring, inventive draping,
sensational colours and meticulous workmanship, this was
easily the best RCA graduate line-up in many years, outclassing
many collections seen at London Fashion Week. Head-hunters
from Chloé, Alberta Ferretti, SportMax, John Galliano,
Nike and Puma, among others, were queueing up to interview
their favourites barely before the last model had left
the catwalk.
It is frustrating that so many of these
stars will end up enriching design studios far away from
Britain. But at least we can rest assured that the future
of fashion is in safe, British-trained hands.
Now, if only London Fashion Week could
generate the same kind of excitement…
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