THE STYLE ISSUE Clockwise from top left, Vanessa Hindshaw, Catherine MacGruer, Hazel Dunn, Laura Muir
PATTERNITY SUIT
If this year’s collections from eca and GSA fashion students are anything to go by, the future is bright; the future is patterned
Words: Claire Sawers
F ido Dido black and white squiggles. Keith Haring primary colours. Zebra stripes. Tribal zigzags. Formula One chequers. Deckchair stripes. Tie dye swirls. This spring, the view out the window is looking motifed, adorned, ‘jazzy’, and anything but dull. Bold monochrome prints are all over the high street, as are faded, washed-out shades of denim, dipped fabrics and ombre fades – currently popping up everywhere from mussed-up hairdos to window blinds and bedsheets.
It’s a theme that’s also repeating itself through this year’s student design collections at Edinburgh College of Art and Glasgow School of Art. In Glasgow, the recent Fashion + Textiles Fashion Show at the Arches showed off the 90s-nodding, grey and midnight blue crushed velvet splodges of Reemah Shanab, the technicoloured flecks of Vanessa Hindshaw, and neon animal prints of Hazel Dunn (all third year textiles students, specialising in print, see above.) Izzi Rainey (whose bleached-out, Aztec block prints can be seen over on page 13) were inspired by the farm she grew up on in Norfolk. ‘I became fascinated by the way nature takes over our manmade structures. With moss growing over walls and ivy growing through cracks in the barn roof, I began taking rubbings from surfaces around the farm such as chicken wire, pipes, wood, tyre marks.Then I decided that I wanted to bring Glasgow into the project as this is part of my life now. So I started to collage the rubbings I had collected into buildings around Glasgow
18 THE LIST 21 Feb–21 Mar 2013
such as the Botanics and tenement blocks. The colours came from flaky paint round the farm and graffiti around Glasgow.’ Continuing this spring’s ominpresent black and white theme, knit student Catherine MacGruer (see above) fused stark monochrome lines with tactile pompoms and wool frills, clashing them with banana yellow or peacock blue shades, creating a range of futuristic Cosby sweaters for men and women.
Across in Edinburgh, the student fashion shows take place a couple months after the GSA ones, but an early look at the collections flashed up a pretty broad range of influences. Fourth year fashion student Shauni Douglas was browsing the internet when she found photos of the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club for inner-city kids in Philadelphia, a project that has heavily influenced her ghetto-equestrian designs. Her classmate Claire Baird has designed a range of ladieswear and matching solidly structured metal and wood handbags, inspired by the sturdy but luxurious designs of 80s yachts, while Morwenna Darwell has played with shades of blue for her collection – a turquoise, tealy blur of dresses influenced by Picasso’s blue period.
The Edinburgh College of Art Fashion Show, The University’s McEwan Hall, Bristo Square, Thu 25-Fri 26 Apr, £15, available from hubtickets.co.uk