The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2023 - Issue 33

bitefashion Jada Brookes looks at the University of Westminster students who showed their graduate collections at Graduate Fashion Week. University Westminster of S ince it was established in 1991 by fashion design- er and Warehouse co-founder Jeff Banks, fashion recruitment specialist Vanessa Denza and then- show producer John Walford, Graduate Fashion Week (GFW) has brought thousands of talented final-year students from universities in the UK and overseas togeth- er. The first event was held at the Business Design Centre in Islington, north London and GFW celebrated its 30th anniversary in June 2021 at the Coal Drops Yard in Kings Cross. It allowed students outside of London to display their work in the capital. Before this, they would show in their cities, and fashion industry members would come out to look at graduate shows over several days. “But by the late 1980s, people were having to stay in offices a bit longer, and the sheer cost for students as far as Newcastle having to put on a show in London was quite prohibitive,” GFW chairman Douglas MacLennan explained, who taught fashion design at Northumbria University. The annual event kickstarted some of fashion’s best-known names, such as former Burberry creative director Christo- pher Bailey, the first recipient of the Gold Catwalk award in 1992. It was renamed the Christopher Bailey Collec- tion of the Year Award in 2017 after he was announced as a Lifetime Patron at its 25th anniversary the year before. GFW also catapulted Antonio Berardi, Stella McCartney and Julien MacDonald to the forefront of fashion. After Bailey graduated with a BA in Fashion from the Uni- versity of Westminster in 1990, he continued with a two- year MA in Fashion at the Royal College of Art thanks to GFW’s funding. “I was extraordinarily lucky and surprised to win the GFW award when I was graduating from my degree course at the University of Westminster Harrow College of Art, as it was known then,” he said. He appreci- ated going further into education and studying with other talented designers, artists and makers worldwide. The Royal College of Art embedded a sense of the impor- tance of relevance. “It made me think about, and be aware of, how design needs context to make sense of a strong point of view.” Before his graduation, Donna Karan visited and saw his collection, and he flew to New York to work with her and then at Gucci with Tom Ford. “The recogni- tion from the GFW award not only impacted my profes- sional career in a profound and significant way, but it also gave me personal experiences beyond my wildest dreams.” From 2014 to 2019, GFW was held at the Old Truman Brewery in east London. Victoria Beckham, Nick Knight, Dame Vivienne Westwood, Diane Von Furstenberg, Nad- ja Swarovski and Dame Zandra Rhodes were also named Lifetime Patrons. In 2020, the physical show was post- poned and replaced with a socially distanced celebration in September by the Graduate Fashion Foundation in Coal Drops Yard. The following year, it returned to physical presence at the exact location in central London. Last year, GFW continued its annual event at Coal Drops Yard, where a host of newly graduated university students showed their collections. One of the outstanding educa- tional establishments was the Harrow-based University of Westminster, with 14 participants. Spotlights illuminated the darkened-lit room as the emerging designers presented their collections. Professional cameras (and smartphones) were readied to capture images of the garments rendered on the catwalk. graduate WEEK fashion 2022 Photography: Tony Wellington