Today saw the culmination of the Union Black “Rude Boys in Jamaica” project where students from FdA Tailoring were asked to research and explore the significance of Jamaican fashion and the Rude Boys youth subculture that sprung up in the 1950s and 1960s. Their task was to translate this research into a new design for a contemporary Rude Boy suit.

Students presented their final designs in the form of a salon show to a panel including renowned bespoke tailors Charlie Allen and Adam of London, Stylist Harris Elliott and influential Style Blogger Steve Salter of Style Salvage.

Rude Boys Tailoring Project

As part of celebrations for Jamaica 2012, the 50th Anniversary of Jamaica’s Independence, the tailoring students researched and explored the significance of Jamaican fashion and what it communicated sartorially, racially and culturally.

Rude Boys Tailoring Project

Over a 10 week period the tailoring students immersed themselves in the subculture of Rude Boys who first appeared in the 1950s, particularly within the poorer areas of Kingston, Jamaica. As the Jamaican diaspora grew in the UK so did the influence and reach of Rude Boy culture.

Rude Boys Tailoring Project

• FdA Tailoring course information
• Follow the tweets from the day #RudeBoySuitProject

The Polish-British Fashion Show took place in February this year presenting work from fashion institutions in Poland and Great Britain. Two LCF graduates Nova Chiu (BA Fashion Design Technology: Fashion Textiles 2011) and Susanna Bettancourt (MA Digital Fashion 2011) represented Great Britain in the fashion show which took place in the Orangery of the Palace Museum in Wilanow. (more…)

One of the images from the LCF Styles Damart project

We are thrilled to announce for the second successive year London College of Fashion’s talented postgraduate Fashion Media and Styling students have been drafted into another exciting partnership with home shopping and online fashion brand, Damart. This innovative fashion project will see the students create a breathtaking and cutting edge set of images inspired by Damart’s ten year efforts to support UK based charities. These inspirational images showcasing the incredible talent of LCF students will challenge perceptions of Damart and what they have to offer.

Encouraged to stretch the brief and push the boundaries as much as they wish, the students will style images that could be used in a new Look Book, aimed at grabbing a fashion journalist’s attention and also one iconic shot with the all-important “wow” factor. If that wasn’t enough, the students will also restyle Damart’s iconic Pink Vest and create a video documenting their partnership with Leeds based charity, Heart Research UK. All this in just ten weeks. Keep checking in on these pages to see how the students are getting on with exclusive sneak previews of their work and of course the final images which will be judged on the 13th March.

• Graduate Diploma in Fashion Media Styling
• @Damart_uk on Twitter
• Follow this project on Facebook

Hana Cha, Womenswear collection of the year with Lauren Laverne and Christopher Raeburn

A review by short course student Lewis Robert Cameron.

The MA season saw the completion of fifteen months of determination and hard work by LCF’s MA 2012 graduates: a three-day stint at Victoria House and an exclusive catwalk show held in the prestigious V&A.

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L-R: Presenter Gemma Cairney, Monica Welburn, Max Hailwood and Nick Smith at the BBC 1Xtra studios. Image courtesy of BBC 1Xtra

To mark the first day of London Fashion Week, BBC Radio 1Xtra continued their regular fashion coverage by hosting a live discussion on the Gemma Cairney afternoon show, with a host of fashion experts including accessories designer Fred Butler, Fashion blogger and model Bip Ling, stylist Leanne Soki Mak and of course, London College of Fashion students!

Students Monica Welburn, Max Hailwood and Nick Smith, all studying BA (Hons) Fashion Journalism at LCF, were invited to be part of the fashion panel joining Gemma to discuss trends, London Fashion Week in general, and also take part in her so OTM (Of The Moment) feature.

Second year student Monica, whose blog The Elgin Avenue recently won the Marie Claire Blog Award for best fashion blog said of the experience:

Nerve wracking as it can be on live radio I absolutely LOVED it! We are so lucky at LCF to be supported in our pursuits in to the real-life fashion industry, being on Radio 1Xtra was a ton of fun and it was great to be able to chat London Fashion Week and trends with Gemma Cairney who, like us, clearly loves to fly the flag for the British fashion industry. What a great opportunity – one of many amongst the media World for LCF students!

Nick, Monica and Max in the Radio 1Xtra green room before going live on the Gemma Cairney show. Image taken from Monica's blog The Elgin Avenue

• See the overview of the whole show here
• Read more about BA (Hons) Fashion Journalism
• Visit Monica’s award winning blog The Elgin Avenue

BA (Hons) Fashion Media Part Time student Gsus Lopez has just won the prestigious Grand Prix Award for Best Film at ASVOFF in Barcelona. His film, Ephemeral Nature, has won the top award at the event that was held at the end of January. When asked about his win, Gsus said:

I thought it was amazing to have been selected by Diane Pernet under the Official Selection category. It feels great to have such good recognition when you’ve worked so hard for so long and with so many limitations, mainly economic, it pays off more than you could imagine.

ASVOFF (A shaded View of Fashion and Film Festival) was launched in 2008 by Diane Pernet, a world-renowned fashion critic and video journalist based in Paris. Since its launch, ASVOFF has been instrumental in promoting a new creative genre, the ‘fashion film’, by providing a platform for the work of filmmakers who explore the themes of fashion, through the medium of the moving image.

• BA (Hons) Fashion Media Part Time
• More about ASVOFF

We caught up with the two MA_12 winners straight after the catwalk show to see how they were feeling.

Menswear: Collection of the Year was Tina Elisabeth Reiter – whose modern, fresh and innovative collection was inspired by her Austrian heritage.

The winner of Womenswear: Collection of the Year was Hana Cha from Seoul in South Korea, who produced a show-stopping collection of exquisite womenswear featuring luxurious golds and purples, that required hours of painstaking hand embroidery.

TV and radio personality Lauren Laverne announced the awards, with the help of young British designer Christopher Raeburn.

Charlotte Simpson's collection on the catwalk at the MA Show. Image: Chris Moore/ Catwalking.com

Vauxhall Fashion Scout, the internationally recognised home of new talent has announced today it has snapped up three London College of Fashion MA_12 graduates for their forthcoming AW12/13 season.

Joseph Turvey, Charlotte Simpson and Christina Hamilton will present their collections with Vauxhall Fashion Scout at LFW later this month, after only showcasing their work as part of the LCF MA_12 Season just a week ago.

Joseph Turvey, MA Fashion Design Technology – Menswear has been selected as part of the line up for Ones to Watch MEN, while Fellow MA Fashion Design Technology – Womenswear graduate Charlotte Simpson and MA Fashion Artefact graduate and winner of the Leathersellers’ Company Business Start Up Award Christina Hamilton have both been selected for the AW12/13 presentation, where their collections will be presented to international fashion press, industry and buyers.

Joseph Turvey's collection on the catwalk at the MA show. Image: Chris Moore / Catwalking.com

Specifically tailored to the men’s market on LFW’s dedicated Menswear day, Ones To Watch MEN is a collaborative platform for four of the hottest new talents, selected by panel of industry experts. This season the Judging Panel included Katy England, Holly Shackleton Editor of i-D, Jessica Bumpus of Vogue.com, Style Bubble’s Susie Lau, Marios Schwab, Felder Felder, David Koma Hanna Emslie from Selfridges Zara Martin for Village Bicycle, Rebekah Roy, and Vauxhall Fashion Scout´s Founder and Director Martyn Roberts.

Martyn Roberts, Founder of Vauxhall Fashion Scout commented:

This season, the selection of Ones To Watch MEN is an enthusing, stimulating line up of new names. The hugely successful launch of the Ones To Watch MEN initiative at London Fashion Week has seen great talents, including T.Lipop, Baartmans and Siegel and Asger Juel Larsen launch their labels into the rapidly evolving menswear market. OTW MEN is a powerful vehicle promoting, supporting and presenting to the industry new names.

Christina Hamilton's saddlery designs displayed on a bicyle

Joseph, Charlotte and Christina join fellow LCF graduates William Tempest, Ada Zanditon, Nova Chiu, Baartmans and Siegel, Young Lilee, Asger Juel Larson and Jennifer Morris – all of whom have been selected by Vauxhall Fashion Scout over the last couple of years for their pioneering programme which offers unique showcasing opportunities via catwalk shows, salon shows, presentations or exhibitions, whilst also offering the designers business support and sponsorship opportunities.

• Read more about Vauxhall Fashion Scout: Ones to Watch MEN
• Read more about the LCF MA_12 season

Your chance to make the LCF world a little bit greener. We’re putting on workshops, talks and events across the College to make sustainability come alive at LCF.

To find out how to get involved, check the events listings to find out what will be going on at your site next week.

• Read about Beauty is in the I event

This year, we are once again launching a search for people like YOU (male and female) to model in photoshoots, fashion films and walk the runway in one of the highest profile graduate showcases in the UK: our BA runway show on 28 June.

We love individuality, we love image, we love uniqueness, we just want to see more of it in the fashion industry – we know things are changing but we’re not willing to wait – our students are the fashion industry of tomorrow. We say homogeneous fashion images are for the faint hearted. We will create events and editorials that are alive and reflect how much London College of Fashion loves fashion and loves the people that make it happen. To do this we need YOU.

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