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BA Season 2012 – The Shows
One of my favourite quotes is by the anthropologist Ted Polhemus. He writes very insightfully about fashion in all its guises but it is the one where he discusses youth culture that at the time of our end of year undergraduate shows seems so pertinent. He said that “There isn’t going to be a next… →
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BA Season 2012 – The Artwork
We have recently sent out our invitations to the BA Show Season. What’s really exciting about this are the ideas behind the visuals developed by our talented staff here at LCF. Rob Phillips, Creative Director for the School of Design & Technology formulated the design brief. Our resident Graphic Designer David Hardy then worked with… →
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FiFi Awards
These days, any celebrity worth their salt, has at least one fragrance to their name. It was interesting to note when I, along with Louise Wilson of CSM and Wendy Dagworthy of RCA, were judging the best new packaging for male and female fragrances for this week’s FiFi Awards, just how many celebrity’s have used… →
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Beauty and Brutality (Wallace Collection)
Fashion is sometime like water, it is forever seeping into all aspects of our lives sometimes in surprising ways. The exhibition at the Wallace Collection- The Noble Art of the Sword: Fashion and Fencing in Renaissance Europe is a prime example of this. Fight Book Detail- Ridolfo Capo Ferro, Gran Simulatero dell’arte e dell’uso della… →
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Ballgowns (V&A)
Gown by Victor Edelstein, 1986. Worn and given by Lady Heseltine. Museum no. T.264-2001. Image © David Hughes 2011 Fashion is often accused of being frivolous, ephemeral and unnecessary. It is not essential to our survival as human beings. Perhaps it is a sign that times are peaceful, that we are able to create and… →
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Fashion Illustration (Fashion Space Gallery)
For a long time the relationship between illustration and fashion has been symbiotic. Designers used drawings to develop and communicate their ideas, whilst historically magazines relied on them to show the latest fashions to an eager and expectant audience. The spread of photography looked as though it would bring this to an end; however students… →
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Boudicca
For some years Boudicca (aka Zowie Broach and Brian Kirby) have had a close relationship with London College of Fashion, contributing to conferences, projects and helping in the selection of students for catwalk shows. Well known nationally and internationally for the quality of their tailoring, use of fabrics and of technology – in particular film… →
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The Psychology of Consumption
Gaby Hinsliff writing in the Guardian (11 April 2012) challenges us to consider the “viability of the everyday habits to which we feel blithely entitled” and asks the question “when will the stigma now attached to rampant consumerism spread to the over consumption of natural resources?” My visit this week to Sheffield University’s Psychology Department… →
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Diana Vreeland
Looking at a series of quotes by Diana Vreeland, one of my favourites is where she celebrates vulgarity- “ Vulgarity is a very important ingredient in life. I’m a great believer in vulgarity- if it’s got life…..no taste is what I’m against.” I sometimes wonder if all the choice and instant access to garments and… →
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SUBLIME: Beyond Duty
Duty: that which one is bound by any obligation to do I have become increasingly interested in how certain actions become first acceptable to society and then, ultimately, something that you have to do. Following on from that, why do society and culture come to see certain behaviour or beliefs as acceptable when they are… →