It is not easy for an emerging designer to get their foot in the door. The ability to show at London Fashion Week comes with a hefty price tag but luckily, there are platforms like OnOff that support young talents and provide them with an opportunity to showcase their work. At the same time, graduate shows of London fashion schools have become a vital part of LFW as the industry keeps a close eye on the rising stars.
Bold shapes and material application, embellishments and theatricality. Inspiration from fetishwear and past decades but also experimental and futuristic visions. Project Runway judges would probably have claimed all of these too costumey but for me, there’s something intriguing in the freedom these designers create wearable art.
Vane Bon
“The proposed female of Bon’s debut collection offers a sartorial interpretation of power and fetishism inspired by the heroines of retro-futurist films. Ultra-feminine silhouettes converge with sharp tailoring, while volume is mixed with structure; luxurious fabrications contrast with hi-tech materials to create a fusion of glamour and sportswear.”
Fennuala Butterfield
“Low-budget horror and porn movies of the 1970s, and their obsession with nuns, inspires a collection contrasting purity and innocence versus repressed sexuality. Severe, restrained outwear is juxtaposed against voluminous draping to create striking silhouettes. Virgin cotton contrasts with PVC in blushing pinks and reds offsetting the clean white undertones.”
Yan Dengyu
“Yan’s work integrates his architecture approach to fashion design, and in doing so he creates angular and particular patterns resulting in exaggerated structures. He designs voluminous and theatrical collections applying the metaphorical things into his works, as an expression of fashion as a performance.”
Brandon Choi
“Choi explores the process of toiling, exposing the beauty of raw, unfinished works-in-progress. The collection juxtaposes tailored forms with draped volumes and utilizing calico with taffeta and crinoline, evoking thoughts of memory, and mourning; and an appreciation for the overlooked sensibilities of the human touch in a digitalized society.”
Karolina Brown
“A collection of romanticism, inspired by the extravagant masquerade balls of the 19th century. A chaotic combination of colour, embellishment, print, and fabrication creates a dreamlike world of sparkling and shimmer, blurring the lines between garment clarity and obscuration.”
House of SheldonHall
“HOSH combines experimental textiles application and innovative pattern cutting techniques to produce fashion unlike any other, European chic with the solid foundation of unmistakeable British eccentricity. Individually designed and hand made in Yorkshire, House of SheldonHall’s target market are women brave enough to live out their fantasies through fashion.”
Tumisola Ladega
“Ladega’s collection explores the question ‘At what point does a girl become a woman, and can she be both? Inspired by the oversized, hip hop sportswear of 90s youth culture, combined with the conservative tailoring of the 80s, the collection explores exaggerated silhouettes, unusual fabric combinations, and construction collage.”
Marina Patalano
“Patalano’s debut collection, ‘The Complete Tales of Women and Others as Subaltern Natives’, invites the viewer into a universe that follows a radical heroine and her female counterparts. Awkward, exaggerated silhouettes, mixed with loud prints and inflatable accessories, bring together the worlds of national costume and mid-century design.”
STYLEFULLNESS 
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