Fashion Design BA final year students and alumni show at London Fashion Week

The BA Fashion Design programme responded to COVID-19 restrictions by creating a series of fashion films to launch this year's graduates at London Fashion Week. Westminster was the first undergraduate course to exhibit at LFW and continues a tradition of innovation by being the first to experiment with fashion film as a means of displaying student collections.

Three films were made, titled ‘Soft Focus’, ‘Modernist’ and ‘Utopia/Dystopia’, which represented varying themes and had different directors. There was also a documentary about the challenges that the students had faced. 

Sunday also saw Paolo Carzana, who graduated from the course in 2018 and was named a recipient of the NEWGEN award earlier this month, show a film highlighting his latest collection. It received a lot of attention, with a write up on his show in American Vogue, who discussed his collection and talent saying that his debut “places him as an isolated leader-hero of Gen Z’s fiercely sensitive values. Not to mention, a wonder to the fashion world at large.”

Steven Daley, whose 2020 graduate collection was worn by Harry Styles and who recently dressed actor Josh O’Connor for the BAFTAs, had his AW21 collection modelled by Sir Ian McKellen in the Observer magazine on Sunday as well. While on Monday, Robyn Lynch and Priya Ahluwalia, who both graduated from the Menswear MA in 2018, showed their latest collection. Ahluwalia was also announced as the winner of the 2021 BFC/GQ Designer Menswear Fund. She will receive a 12-month bespoke high-level business mentoring programme and a £150,000 cash prize.

Talking about the graduates’ work, Rosie Wallin, Course Leader who directed one of the films, said: “This has been an unbelievable year. The students and staff at Westminster, like the rest of the world, have been forced by COVID-19 to work in completely new ways and to work 10 times harder, not only to produce the final collections, but to constantly problem solve, to pull together and to overcome. The work produced by the class of 2021 is varied, beautiful and accomplished. 

“Most of the work was produced without access to college facilities and with tutorials conducted online. The students could have used this as an excuse to complain, to produce less, not to try so hard, not to experiment, but instead they rose up, they adapted, they pushed their creativity to even greater achievement, they used their solitude to dig deep and find out what they were capable of.”
Photographer and filmmaker Nick Knight added: “Further cementing Westminster’s reputation as a leading innovator, the students adapted to the challenges of lockdown with tremendous passion, solving collective challenges with their unique and individual talents.”

Author and journalist Charlie Porter also commented on the work: “I love when a year shows its strength through its individualism. Each student in this Westminster class has their own motivation and signature, whether it is addressing waste materials, questioning gender, addressing race, pushing the technicalities of design, or using cut and pattern to express deep emotion through garments.”

Professor Andrew Groves, Professor of Fashion Design said: “It is fantastic to see our new fashion graduates’ collections feature alongside our alumni from both the BA Fashion Design and MA Menswear course at London Fashion Week. Although this has been a challenging year for students and the fashion industry, they have demonstrated their ingenuity and creativity in finding new ways to highlight their exciting talent.”

Watch the University of Westminster’s BA Fashion Design show at LFW.