Northumbria University, Newcastle, showcases the Northern flair of fashion

Dresses inspired by Japanese armour, outfits taking you back to 1970s Brooklyn and the birth of hip-hop, and tops made from repurposed photo-luminescent materials. These were just some of the innovative creations that graced the runway at Northumbria University’s annual graduate fashion show last night at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

Wenyue (Doris) Zhang’s collection inspired by the Peking opera. Copyright © Toph McGrillis

 The top 20 student designers from this year’s Northumbria University Fashion course will participate in the high-profile London Graduate Fashion Week catwalk shows from 5 June to 8 June 2016. This will be an opportunity for them to showcase their designs and compete with other graduating fashion students as the country’s rising fashion stars.
 Students from Fashion, Fashion Design and Marketing and Fashion Communication, will also be showing their final undergraduate year work on the Northumbria Graduate Fashion Week stand.

Courtney Simon’s SIMON.C collection. Copyright © Toph McGrillis

Seen left - Courtney Simon’s ‘SIMON.C’ collection was inspired by not only The Apartheid but also her Caribbean heritage.


Her highly personal womenswear collection highlights some of the key quotes from the Apartheid period and Caribbean culture, including mirror image detail, African print and garment inspiration from African robes.

Megan Bramhald’s collection. Copyright © Toph McGrillis

Northumbria University is renowned for nurturing the talent of its fashion students, ensuring they develop their creativity and reach their full potential, so that they are equipped to enter such a highly competitive industry.


Previous alumni have joined the ranks of internationally renowned fashion houses and companies, including Burberry, DKNY, Lanvin, Paul Smith, Karen Millen, ASOS, and Zara among many others.


















For details on courses go to :
https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-northumbria/clearing-search/

The Young Creative Chevrolet European Awards 2011

The Young Creative Chevrolet European Awards ceremony took place on Thursday 22 Sep at the iconic London landmark Battersea Power Station.

In honour of 100 years in the industry, Chevrolet asked students from 22 European countries to help celebrate their centennial anniversary by using this as a basis for their applied arts entries.  Categories included video, music, photography, visual arts and of course fashion.

The winners of the fashion category were:

1^st Prize- Lubica Mildeova from Slovakia.

and her version of the little black dress

2^nd Prize – Ida Klamborn from Sweden

with her streamlined long red gown and cap

3^rd Prize - Tobias F Muller from Germany, with his celebration of womens freedom through trousers.

At the awards, one of the guest speakers was Wayne Hemmingway, creator of the street fashion company Red or Dead, who gave an inspiring and entertaining speech on how he and his wife started in the fashion business.

And of course it wouldn’t be a Chevrolet evening without a few fabulous cars dotted around which make very good fashion accessories:

1964 Corvette Stingray – regarded by many automotive historians as one of the best looking cars ever designed.Shown here in classiccool  white.

Looking like a  mean lean fighting machine is the futuristic re-interpretation of the Stingray - the 50^th Anniversary Corvette Stingray Concept celebrating its first appearance in Europe.

Unfortunately after the awards, it wasn’t a gorgeous Chevrolet that took me home but a big red number159 bus.

Images provided by Mischief PR

Jackie J.S. Lee Spring/Summer 2012 collection at London Fashion Week

Korean born Newgen designer, Jackie Lee graduated from Central Saint Martin’s in 2010and launched her label the same year. 

This year she looks to the 1920’s style of dropped waists and boyish straight silhouettes for her SS12 collection. 

For her fabric, she has taken inspiration from her niece whilst she was eating candy floss. It was not the fluffiness of the candy floss itself that caught her eye, but she became fascinated by the look and feel it had on her niece’s clothing.

She replicated the effect and created a high shine embossed film on to her garments

Expecting candy floss pink to be in the colour palette, it was not to be as monochrome black and white dominated...

with accents of cobalt blue......

.....and peach. I suppose it would have been too sweet and girlie for her sleek and androgynous shapes.

A few styles where a bit too clinical looking 

but most looked ideal for a hot summer’s day.

I could imagine the peach top with plunging black neckline worn over a white shift dress looking stunning for a lazy warm hot day at Wimbledon or cricket.

Fashion Fringe - announces the Three Finalists

Fashion Fringe was created by Colin McDowell (fashion historian and Sunday Times Style Contributor) in partnership with IMG Fashion in order to find and nurture undiscovered British fashion designers.
And this year the three finalists are:

Fyodor Golan

Design duo half Latvian and half Russion Fyodor Podgornijs who attended the distinguished Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp; and Israeli Golan Frydman who gained a BA from Intsituto Marangoni, London.
Painting is their inspiration creating shapes and proprtions.












Heidi Leung

Born in Singapore but brought up in Californian, Heidi graduated from Central St Martins in July 2010.
Her inspiration is a tough facade concealing an inner softness.














Nabil El-Nayal

Fortunately to be snapped up by Harrods online, Nabil's designs include a cape made from voluminous layers of sheer silk chiffon with an oversized Elizabethan style ruffle collar.
El-Nayal trained at the Royal College of Art and has previously won the British Fashion Council MA Scholarship.

This year www.very.co.uk were the sponsors of Fashion Fringe

The three finalists will now spend time working on their collections to be showcaseed at London Fashion Week.

Simple but chic - Christopher Waller's Autumn/Winter 2011 Collection

After studying  Fashion Design at the University of East London and graduating in 2007, British born Simon Christopher Waller started designing at John Richmond. Now he has taken that large scary leap and created his own brand Christopher Waller which was launched in July 2010.

His new brand’s philosophy is:

’To provide effortless sophistication to women on a day-to-day basis blurring the transition from day to night with clean and flattering silhouettes enabling subtle detailing to shine through.’

And this certainly showed through with his AW10 debut collection which was a mix of silks, wools and jerseys in minimalistic chic tailoring injected with an effortless laid back wearablility.

For the SS11 collection, Waller has taken his inspiration from the minimalist artists of the late 50’s and 60’s who rejected outside influences such as politics, religion, symbolism etc  as the only means to create art. They chose to strip their work to the pure basics where colours, lines, shapes and textures were used sparingly and didn’t express the moods and feelings of the artist, but relied on the viewer to appreciate the object in its simplicity as just a beautiful piece of art.

Waller has carried this minimalism in to his cut and colour palette, proving you don’t need to rely on frills, bows and bright colour ways to create beautiful statement garments. The fluid fabrics of silk, jersey and finely woven wool he uses ensures the simple tailored cut is not harsh and gives a soft luxurious feel to the whole collection.

However Waller does add a touch of texture with his silk panelling on the jersey and wool pieces.

The main colour palette is black with accents of bold block colouring in muted earth tones of slate, stone, aubergine and dusty pink.

Highlights of the collection include a deconstructed fine wool box blazer in a muted block colour of slate with silk black cuffs, pockets and lapels; and a jersey T-dress with a taped silk seam.

Summary: A chic and minimalistic classic soft tailored look with a laid-back sporty twist

More details and images can be viewed on www.christopherwaller.com

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Vanessa G AW11 Collection for the well heeled woman

Designer Vanessa Gounden presented her AW11 collection at the glorious Banqueting House in Whitehall.

What makes this debut collection different is that Vanessa is not straight out from college; she is in the prime of her life and has used her own colourful and rich life experiences as inspiration for the designs.

Of Indian descent, Vanessa grew up in South Africa on her family’s small holding where she helped cut and prepare roses for sale to florist. Vanessa G the label has taken the red rose as their logo and the rose heads could be seen everywhere at the show, decorating the bar area, the side tables, the catwalk show and even the carpet at the reception was black with digital rose prints.

Due to apartheid growing in South Africa, Vanessa and her family had to leave their livelihood and were removed to a dormitory township with minimal facilities. Here Vanessa played an active role in the trade union movement and served in the Nelson Mandela administration after South Africa’s first democratic election in 1944. This experience equipped Vanessa with high business acumen but also with a strong desire to help those equally deserving but less fortunate.

Her collection takes unique pieces of art from unsung artists and transforms them in to timeless classic which are handcrafted for individuals who are equally passionate about the arts and fashion.

The catwalk was impressive and ran along the sides of the hall with a large facade of coliseum like arches at the front. Inside these arches, lasers projected films of nature (rivers, flowers, skies etc) at the right time to correspond with the prints on the model’s garments. 

Opening the show was the moody monochrome film of clouds with the models wearing grey and white photographic prints with just a touch of pale pink.

The prints were of the sea, clouds, windswept umbrellas, skylines and pink flamingos.

Tights were embellished with hanging sequins, sheath dresses lightly skimmed the body,

trousers were high waisted and slim, and jackets finished at the waist with ¾ length sleeves. Coats ranged from the classic trench to the glamorous 1950’s swagger style.

However the classic trench was given a twist with the digital photographic prints -loved the one in pale blue with the photographic art of woman and umbrella splashing in the sea.

We now swapped black and white film to colour and it was the turn of the florals, greenery and the earth.  Here the models garments merged with the large photographic prints hanging behind them, clearly showing the full picture of the digital prints on the clothes.

 The next stage saw the colour palette change to a striking  black and red combination. The print here of red flora was larger with more background space.  

Vanessa G cleverly includes the different styles of the classic look in her collection, making sure all classic women will find something they love. From the above the knee fitted sheath dress,

the mid calf A line skirt, the pencil skirt

to the cute high waisted retro 50’s full dress which was given an update with a shorter length .

Vanessa G brand is for the upwardly mobile and well-heeled woman who is looking for a new contemporary experience and to own a piece of art through her clothes.  ‘Art’Outure ‘, a mix of Art and Couture -  the ultimate statement of luxury.

It's plain black and white with Lunar Sky AW11 collection at London Fashion Week

I was a bit confused to start with as to whether this was a bridal collection.

The first five dresses were just white.

The gowns were gorgeous especially the 3 tiered chiffon edged with chiffon flowers with a Grecian halter type neckline, but for me, just too white.

A few splashes of black began to appear.

Then the black emerged fully creating a more wearable evening gown.

Loved the black chiffon with scattered black chiffon flowers over the silver white satin slip

There were a few cute cocktail dresses.

A great collection, but the jury is still out on the use of white. What do you think?.

Zed Eye AW11 collection gets the blues at London Fashion Week

The main colour palette was blue ranging from

the pastel to the navy.
The collection was an eclectic mix of eras with a bit of ‘Mad men ‘look...

... up to the 60s mini shift dresses.

Shaggy faux fur added glamour to hemlines of simple flared dresses, and collarless coats,

whilst short capes dressed up pale blue Capri pants and pencil dresses.

Skirt lengths ranged from the mid calf ...

....to the mini,

styles from the pencil to...

... the flared.

In fact most tastes were catered for in this collection as long as you liked blue.