In the golden-lit basement of the Chancery Rosewood Hotel, a Mayfair landmark and former home of the U.S. embassy, the LCF Fashion Design Technology MA students’ collection rails speak to the fractious, turbulent landscape they’re about to launch into.
This is a group that, as MA womenswear course leader and the students’s much-deserved champion Nabil El-Nayal said, are conscious of creating work that puts their values first. Tha meant working with upcycled and found materials, from scavenged Finnish reindeer fur repurposed into a Scandi raver-goth bomber jacket by Erika Kaija, to the jubilantly colorful, metal-woven cultural fabrics of Aishwarya Singh. Eva Clarkson, with her trades work-inspired collection of carabiner-pierced coats and equestrian saddle bustiers, articulated this ethos by experimenting with traditional crafts, imagining what heritage designs will look like decades from now. Jingyi Xu’s protective garments were an ASMR delight: sun pleats, soft hip panels, pillow-like hoods cast in whites and pale sherbet shades were scented with bunches of soothing lavender. Weining Wang, who was inspired by his late grandma who was part of China’s first female motorcycle club, touchingly presented a bag crafted to look like a leather glove-clad hand. Storytelling toward a better world was a recurring sentiment, as was clever modular design and deeply defiant contrasts in materiality.
On the runway, Geraint Brian Lewis triumphantly reckoned with trauma through texture: constricting latex, bedsheets tailored into soft shirts, stark blue and white knits with a ‘warrior’ text wrapping the shoulders. Ziying Liang transposed feminine ideals for dressing onto menswear with elegant suits that featured tulle panniers and posy pink deconstructed tutus. Sensuality abounded and reveled in tension within Darren Cabon’s menswear cohort: Jiyuan Fan’s hand-carved wooden exoskeletons were transfixing against sinewy suiting. Xinhao Wang explored sportswear sensibilities with exquisite tailoring, and Zeting Zu’s diaphanous, serif-spiked silhouettes should attract brands committed to craft and strong garment construction. Seeing a graduating class so intent on taking in the world, however sinister and uncertain, and making these big swings is worth celebrating.