For the first time I attended Graduate Fashion Week, which is based in East London. The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane. The venue was packed with several university bases showing off the massive amount of talent from this years graduates, exhibiting a variety of work from all different types of fashion courses, such as Fashion Design, Fashion Textiles, Fashion Communication and Fashion Marketing.
As Graduate Fashion Week is held over a few days, I went on the last day to see the best of Graduate Fashion Week. From over the week, a panel of judges toughly narrow down a small selection from all the graduates to show on the last day of GFW. The final catwalk shows the best collections, which get seen by the front row, which consists of A listers, bloggers, buyers, press and professionals from the fashion industry. The atmosphere was overwhelming and quite exciting!
My favourite Spring/Summer 2017 collection from the whole catwalk was George Hollins from Arts University Bournemouth. The military inspired collection was very bold and I felt I was personally captivated by it. The classic masculine menswear silhouettes combined with feminine lace and prints. I loved the colour palette, and the small wonderful details.
After seeing the show, I had a wonder around the several university bases looking at the graduates work. As I am studying Fashion Communication & Styling at Middlesex University, London, I thought it would be interesting to go and look at Fashion Communication graduates, to give me an insight into what will be myself within the future!
Personally, the best work from Fashion Communication this year had to be graduate Erika Bowes. Winner of The Little Black Dress Fashion Photography Award 2016, which was well deserved! For years I have loved and admired her photography and work, her blog is fantastic! A big inspiration. I checked out one of her zines which was based on her trip to Japan, which was amazing! And I also checked her new zine called "Sukeban", which is part of her new online website called Sukeban, which she is Creative Director of with Co-Creative Director, Yuki Haze. I've left the links below for both Erika's website and Sukeban, which you should check out cause it's incredible!
After attending GFW, I went and saw Middlesex University London's Fashion Communication & Styling exhibition which was held in the same location as GFW. As I was previously saying that I am a student at Middlesex, studying Fashion Communication & Styling, this was the first time seeing the graduate exhibition, and it did not disappoint! It was full of such fresh creativity, and really displayed some amazing and stunning work! A big favourite was Photographer and Creative Director Sarah Newman. Exhibiting her series "Social Boys", which I loved. Go and check her work out on her Instagram: @sar_ln
Overall, I thought my experience at Gradate Fashion Week was fantastic and no doubt I'll be attending next years! Such a brilliant experience and I personally learnt a lot for my own working practice in Photography.
