The initiative has provided them with a vital showcasing platform at London Fashion Week since its founding in 2000. Designers are selected by director Lulu Kennedy and a panel of industry experts.
GOOMHEO
The reclaimer of weirdness, who rejects visual conformity as a given. The one who asks, “Why Not?” An array of eccentric, yet compellingly clever sportswear won the South Korean Central Saint Martins alumnus the L’Oreal Professionnel Creative Award winner for both her BA and her MA collection.
Through her sleek body-hugging leotards with appliqued plastic codpieces, off-kilter sportswear with layers of flowing chiffon, knitted body suits and royal blue clown collars, Heo unpack the words “crazy” and “weird” — where they come from, and the way that they’re used in culture to arrest and secure a definition for the unknown.
Heo aims to ‘redefine and reclaim those words to show that what other people see as crazy and weird could just be normal. Those things don’t have to mean standing out or having people point at you.’
Nensi Dojaka
The reclaimer of the female image. Another CSM MA graduate as of February 2019, the Albanian womenswear designer has accumulated significant attention for her ultra feminine aesthetic, deconstructed patchwork textile dresses decorated with spaghetti straps, and lingerie referencing.
For her SS20 presentation and lookbook, Dojaka invited her models to document themselves on their iPhones, handing them the power to choose the image they liked best — to be seen how they wanted to be seen, therefore constructing their own cultural perception.
Ancuta Sarca
The reclaimer of sustainability rhetoric, who brings discarded Nikes and vintage kitten heels from car boot sales and charity shops back from the dead — splicing them in half and merging them together into energetic hybrids that ‘create an odd atmosphere for both the trainers and the heels.’ Her wild, yet extremely chic upcycled designs have quickly become inextricably linked to contemporary discourse surrounding fashion sustainability, due to their advocacy of circular design.
Sarca’s unique angle within the growing market of upcycled fashion is the sheer lightness of her approach to climate change embedded within her shoes. Crucially, the absence of burden in her brand’s sustainability rhetoric makes the process of acknowledging the fashion industry’s grotesque levels of environmental destruction less heavy, and more palatable for her customer.
Gareth Wrighton
The self-proclaimed industry antagoniser. Wrighton’s work traverses a variety of media including knitwear, tailoring, photography and computer modelling, and remarks upon the sterility of modern, globalised garment production. His repertoire of dryly humorous narratives includes dystopian takes on luxury e-commerce and created fictional characters involved in political coups, warring dynasties and family feuds.
Saturated with DIY techniques and visuals (think tops with “MY OTHER T-SHIRT’S A CUM RAG” in scrawly handwriting, or his signature handmade bunny ears), Wrighton’s pieces are explicitly bespoke, one-off items that ‘antagonise an industry led by overconsumption.’
His SS20 collection ‘I’m Slowly Turning Into You: A Virtual Unreality,’ paid tribute to lives spent online, with explicit references to Sex and Simulation. His upcoming AW20 show will conclude what he describes as ‘Three Protests – An American Trilogy.’
Saul Nash
The champion of the multidisciplinary. Saul Nash is an active dancer, choreographer and menswear designer who received his MA in Menswear from the Royal College of Art in 2018. Inspired by the kinetic body and the subversion of sportswear via the memories of the different men he grew up with in North London, Nash’s practice extends to worn garments and ‘their ability to liberate an individual’s identity through movement.’
Saul opened his debut LFWM show with Fashion East in June 2019 with a self-choreographed presentation, in which the catwalk transformed into a performance space. He most recently choreographed SINEGAL, a film for Vogue Italia by stylist Ib Kamara and director Stephan Isaac Wilson.
