Eden Tan Scores Top Honor at Central Saint Martins BA Show
LONDON — Central Saint Martins’ annual BA graduate show saw students pushing the boundaries of fashion with unique textiles, silhouettes and techniques.
Held inside the Granary Square campus in Kings Cross, the 134-graduate showcase certainly lived up to the fashion school’s reputation as “the world’s biggest factory for making trouble” as its current chancellor, Grayson Perry describes the school.
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Menswear designer Eden Tan took home the top honor of the L’Oréal Professionnel Young Talent Award. His collection, titled “On Borrowed Fabric,” centers around sustainability, drawing on his hobby of tinkering to develop new techniques.
Each look from his collection was crafted out of an uncut roll of fabric, some of which were then airbrushed to create a trompe l’oeil effect.
“The motivation of the collection was the possibility of making clothes which could be as easily reprocessed into new garments as if the fabric had never passed through my hands,” Tan explained to WWD.
“This meant developing an arsenal of techniques with the purpose of convincing the eye that what it’s seeing is more than just a roll of fabric,” he added.
Runners up for the L’Oréal prize were womenswear designers Alba Mas Amoros, who came in second place, and Ivan Delogu, who came in third.
Other standouts included Sarabande award winner and womenswear designer Sam Crabbe’s collection, which featured elevated classic wardrobe staples with architectural twists.
In one look, long, lime green silk trousers draped around the models’ legs paired with a gray bandeau top that had protrusions jutting from it. In the model’s hands was a sparkling pink bag, in a shape reminiscent of a bird’s wing.
“It’s about a childhood fascination with birds of prey, in particular the peregrine falcon,” the designer said. “To me, they represent the epitome of agility, fluidity and freedom, which is what I wanted to portray in this collection.”
Sofia Castellon, recipient of the Nina Steward Award, and who is graduating from the knitwear pathway, derived inspiration from her Mexican American identity.
Her work experimented with elastic in knitwear, allowing her textiles, which came in shades of pink, blue and white, to be contorted over metal and plastic structures. Also incorporated in her work were a variety of personal materials.
“Over the course of the past few years, I collected ‘milagros,’ which translates to ‘miracles,’” Castellon explained.
“They’re silver charms from my hometown, Mexico City, Mexico. I knitted them in a way that would create a mesmerizing glimmer and jingle,” she said.
In the middle of the show, calamity struck when a knitwear designer had his models pour cigarette butts over the runway, some of which flew onto the crowd. BA fashion design pathway leader Sarah Gresty was immediately on the scene, among others, clearing the runway for the upcoming models.
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