MA Fashion and the Environment students are to design and host one of the Chelsea Flower Show’s Artisan Retreats.

The summer house will feature a Dye Garden installation and is one of only six retreats in the Flower Show. The retreats are reserved to exhibit the best and most innovative in garden style, arts and creation.

The Dye Garden Retreat will be manned by MA Fashion and the Environment students past and present, and will sit alongside retreats decorated by top UK designers and artists including Wayne Hemmingway, Cath Kidston and Rob Ryan.

Seeking to marry innovative fashion design with ethics and pleasure, the MA Fashion and the Environment students have been using plant dyes to create a range of subtle and beautiful colours and patterns on cloth. The collections exhibited in the Retreat have each been created with natural dyes grown by the students in their dye garden at Mare Street in Hackney, or harvested from within a 15 mile radius.

Their beautiful and sustainable designs will be on show for the Flower Show’s 161,000 thousand visitors as well as 1,300 journalists, photographers and BBC TV.

• MA Fashion and the Environment
• LCF student creates winning design for 100th Chelsea Flower Show

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Katie Bowkett; BA (Hons) Fashion Textiles

BA (Hons) Fashion Textiles student, Katie Bowkett, has created the winning design for a t-shirt to celebrate one hundred years of the Chelsea Flower Show.

The judges, gardener Laetitia Maklouf, and Chelsea based fashion designer, Maria Grachvogel, selected Katie’s colourful design to represent the heritage and future of the world famous flower show.

Two runners up were also selected, with 2nd place going to Edward Curtis (BA (Hons) Fashion Design Technology: Womenswear), and 3rd place going to Davika Anita Rattu (BA (Hons) Fashion Textiles).

The cream t-shirts displaying a floral ‘100 years’ will be on sale at 2013’s Chelsea Flower Show and online, as well as in RHS’ Wisley shop. Katie’s design will be seen and worn by the crowds at the Flower Show which are expected to number some 161,000 people.

Katie wins membership of the RHS, tickets to the Flower Show and her designs will also be featured in the RHS Chelsea Catalogue and the RHS’ magazine, The Garden, which goes out globally.

Katie Bowkett; BA (Hons) Fashion Textiles

• Katie Bowkett’s t-shirt in the RHS online shop
• BA (Hons) Fashion Textiles
• BA (Hons) Fashion Design Technology: Womenswear

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Illustration by Jason Brooks

Tony Glenville, LCF’s Creative Director for the School of Media and Communication, will speak at the V&A on May 22 about the current renaissance in fashion illustration for a talk entitled Fashion Illustration: Portraits of Paris.

Taking the stage with renowned fashion illustrator, Jason Brooks, the pair will discuss Jason’s career, the illustrator’s love of Paris, and the exciting new changes taking place in the fashion illustration industry today.

Tony is the author of the new publication New Icons of Fashion Illustration, and the talk will prove inspiring for budding and accomplished fashion illustrators alike.

Jason designed the iconic visual identity for record label, Hed Kandi, and has drawn the couture shows in Paris and London Fashion Week, as well as working for a multitude of big-hitting names such as Vogue and Coca-Cola.

• Tickets for the talk on the V&A’s site

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Extremely interesting and humorous Angela Clarke, author of Confessions of a Fashionista spoke to LCF’s Management and Science students last week on getting into, surviving and thriving in the fashion industry.

Having spent ten years in the industry Angela shares her eventful journey. She believes, “if you want something and have the basic skills, work hard and you can make things happen.” She isn’t the traditional fashion student and neither did she inherit any fashion sense. Her first encounter with fashion was at the age of 21 with Sex and the City. Working at Harrods got her acquainted with designer clothes, her first fashion shoot: Harrods Christmas catalogue and sharing a cab with her boss and his friend named Lee who happened to be Alexander McQueen.

After reading an engaging and insightful section from her book she guides the students on being fashion forward and how to open the doors of the ‘crazy, glamorous and exciting’ industry. Her top tips are: be prepared to work for free, use every contact you have, do your homework, switch on your voicemail, be professional, be bright, be accommodating and be positive. Once an internship has landed in the bag don’t blow it, do dress the part, do be enthusiastic, reliable, proactive and trustworthy, and do standout.

Believing in her go-getter attitude she concluded her talk with a quick workshop by asking the students to write down what they want to be starting with the phrase ‘I am…’ and then chasing that dream.

• Words by Jahnavi Prasad, MA Fashion Journalism
  
• Image by Monica Alcazar-Duarte
• Other Inside the Industry events

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Iconography by Kasia Wozniak.

Fresh Prints, a new exhibition which celebrates the printed medium. From letterpress to 3D printing, magazine publishing to surface design, Fresh Prints showcases the work of UAL students, graduates and staff across the university’s six colleges and a wide range of courses, disciplines and study levels.

Kasia Wozniak, MA Fashion Photography, 2013 is featured with ‘Iconography’ which questions the authenticity of the image and the wet-plate collodion technique she employs dates back to the 19th century.

Doyeon Noro Kim‘s is also featured with his freelance projects which adopt digital processes to cross the boundaries between fashion, art, photography, performance, moving image and digital print. Doyeon Noro Kim gradutaed from BA (Hons) Fashion Illustration in 2010 and continued to study MA Fashion Artefact graduating in 2013.

• MA Fashion Photography 
• MA Fashion Artefact 
• BA (Hons) Fashion Illustration 
• Fresh Prints 

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Head of Commercial at Ozwald Boateng speaks to LCF about the future of menswear

The first thing you’ll notice about Jalil Rahman, Head of Commercial at Ozwald Boateng is his suit. Masculine yet beautiful, it fits like a glove and is quintessentially Boateng. Jalil came to talk to members of UAL’s Retail & Luxury Goods club about how to reposition a brand in the digital age.

Jalil started the talk with a brief overview of Ozwald Boateng’s history. The first black tailor to have a store on Saville Row, Ozwald Boateng was a cultural powerhouse back in its day – his suits featured in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Marvel comics and were even designated as the ‘face’ of drinks brand, Tanqueray. Admittedly over the past few years however, Ozwald Boateng has been overshadowed by brands such as Jil Sander, Topman and Tom Ford.

“When I first joined Ozwald Boateng, I expected there to be some structures in place; there was nothing,” Jalil laughs. “We had to refine everything about the brand”. Jalil and his team set about catching up with its competitors, starting with a new mission statement, refinement of brand values and the recent unveiling of Ozwald Boateng’s new website.

The website encompasses one of the brand’s key, missing factors: audience engagement. Entitled ‘A Man’s Story’, ozwaldboateng.co.uk now features a global mood board, where users can upload images of their own, unique style. “Within 7 days, we had 450 people from around the world uploading photos of themselves,” Jalil told students, adding that the website received more hits in those 7 days than in the entirety of 2011.

The website was then hacked by an unknown source in Indonesia – something that would cause many to recoil in horror, but to Jalil was a positive sign that traffic was being driven to the site. It is this positivity that emanates from Jalil and is clearly proving to be a winner for Ozwald Boateng as a brand. Even when answering tough questions from clued-up students about possible risks Jalil remains spirited, responding with carefully thought-out (and highly convincing) solutions.

Next up for Ozwald Boateng is a series of exciting commercial partnerships and a catwalk show in 2014. Although he’s reluctant to give too much away, it’s obvious that Jalil has secured a partnership with one of the best technology brands in the world. I’ll leave that to you to figure out, but one thing is for sure: the future of menswear, for Ozwald Boateng at least, is looking bright.

• Words by Nicole Mullen, BA (Hons) Fashion Journalism 
• Images courtesy of the Retail & Luxury Goods club
• Other Inside the Industry events

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Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, Richard Young with Mick Jagger, Jane Seymour and Freddie Mercury

Richard Young is one of those rare photographers who have managed to build fond, long-lasting relationships with some of the world’s most iconic celebrities. Young spoke to students at LCF last month, sharing some of the many fascinating stories about his journey from truanting teen to celebrated photographer.

Arguably the first paparazzi – although paparazzi is a title Young is keen to separate himself from – Young started his career with little experience in photography. In fact, on his first photography job, shooting in the West Country for a friend’s bookshop, he came back with three rolls of totally unusable film!

It was a lucky encounter with John Paul Getty that gave Young his first world exclusive and he hasn’t looked back from there. “I love what I do,” he explains. “It allows me to express myself and it means that I have proved I can do something with my life instead of heading nowhere.”

With a career photographing the likes of Kate Moss, Madonna, Elton John and the late Freddie Mercury, to name but a few, Young really has seen it all. From honeymooning with John Paul Getty and his wife, to eating chocolate cornflake cakes with Diana, Princess of Wales, Young was able to share his unique insight into the world of celebrity and what it means to be a celebrity photographer.

“Paparazzi is such a beautiful word,” said Young. “It used to be such a glamorous job too, but it suddenly got destroyed by all of the terrible events that have happened and especially by the way things are today. It’s just got very ruthless out there.”

With some final advice for students, Young says “it doesn’t matter who you are, but if you’re polite and courteous, always say please and thank you and make conversation with people, it opens so many doors.” Now there’s some advice that we are all glad to hear!

• Words by Nicole Campanaro, BA (Hons) Fashion Journalism 

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In support of UAL’s commitment to increasing biodiversity, staff at LCF’s Lime Grove site transformed a dull paved area into a new wildlife haven.

A day of determined digging saw the creation of a deep pond designed to attract native aquatic species such as frogs and newts. After lining the pool and filling it with water, British plants were added, including; water forget-me-not, marsh marigold and cotton grass. The area around the pond will be naturalised in the coming weeks by removing further paving slabs and replacing them with wild plants.

According to the London Wildlife Trust, the spread of London’s urban environment has destroyed much of the natural habitat for amphibians in the capital. Therefore, ponds are important for common frogs and toads in providing an alternative to lost wildlife habitats.

Ponds not only provide homes for frogs, newts, insects and other invertebrates, but are also a vital source of drinking water for birds and bats; further species that students and staff are keen to attract to the site.

Green Space events are planned across the LCF sites over the coming weeks and months. Ideas and involvement from all staff and students is warmly invited. Please contact Rachel if you would like to take part.

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“Be aware that as fashion journalists, you will always ask the same questions,” Penny Martin jokes. Elegant and poised, Penny is as quick witted and sharp as the magazine she edits. Penny dedicated an hour and a half of her busy schedule to posing the most frequently asked questions to herself for the benefit of LCF’s Media and Communication students. Members of the audience were also given time to pose their own questions.

“Never start with the beginning question,” Penny smiles. In this instance, the ‘beginning’ question is ‘Why did you start The Gentlewoman?’. For those unaware, The Gentlewoman was born out of the thirst for an equally fabulous, womens’ version of Fantastic Man; a magazine that spoke to women as intelligent individuals, not dumb consumers. “We wanted to build a language to represent serious women but not in a serious way,” Penny says. Flicking through back issues of The Gentlewoman, left on The Lounge armchairs, you can spot the telltale signs of playfulness that the magazine does so well. In the most recent issue, an editorial entitled ‘Country’ features little snippets about the lives of the animals captured in the shoot.

Playfulness aside, Penny is committed to long-form, quality print journalism. In the case of The Gentlewoman, this means manipulating the dull Q&A format of most interviews, presenting an interview instead as a genuine conversation. It means asking American Apparel to shoot an exclusive advert that fits in with the aesthetic and values of the magazine. “Having American Apparel advertise in the magazine, but not as they usually advertise felt like an endorsement that what The Gentlewoman is doing is important,” Penny notes.

The Gentlewoman is described as a ‘fabulous publication’ that ‘celebrates inspirational women’ in a warm, personality-driven way. To Penny, this means talking to a wide spectrum of women – whether that be Margaret Dabs, the go-to person for medical pedicures, or Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, no-nonsense businesswoman with a mesmeric voice. Recently, another of Penny’s most frequently posed questions has been about her decision to put a megastar on the cover. “We’re not trying to exclude anybody,” she says, matter-of-factly. Penny is admirable of all different types of women – a quality she traces back to her days working at London’s Fawcett Society Women’s Library.

Asked by one student who inspires her the most, however and Penny replies with ‘clever people’. “I wilt when I’m not in the company of people who are smarter than me,” she admits. For the people in this room, Penny is herself an absolute inspiration. She’s funny, intelligent and clearly works hard.

“People employ me now because I’m not a straight fashion journalist, I’m not an artist, I’m not a writer… I guess I’m all of those things rolled into one”. If ever I get the chance to be even half as fabulous as Penny Martin, I know I’ve done well in life.

• Words by Nicole Mullen, BA (Hons) Fashion Journalism
• Images by Monica Alcazar-Duarte 
• Other Inside the Industry events

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BA (Hons) Fashion Management Chinese lunch club

Students on the BA (Hons) Fashion Management course have started up a lunch time club to supplement their Mandarin classes. Student Clara Scandella set up the club to practise the Mandarin they had already learnt:

It had been great learning Mandarin on the course but as it is such a difficult language I thought it would be useful for us to hear it more and practise with others. Our Programme Director Heather Pickard was able to contact a Mandarin speaking Masters student who now assists our conversations over our lunch.

Students are encouraged to learn different languages to assist them in future placements and work in other countries.

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