Fashion Fringe (Q3107)
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Fashion Fringe is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Fashion Fringe |
Fashion Fringe is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
It's tempting to call Fashion Fringe the London equivalent ofProject Runway. But that diminishes the event—it's a fashion design competition, yes, but there are no snide judging panels, no sponsor-driven "challenges," no histrionics for the camera. That's because there are no cameras. What Fashion Fringe has is designers, and clothes. (And Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey, judging from the front row.) There's a purity to it: The fashion comes first, because the fashion is all there is.All three of the Fashion Fringe finalists this year were innovative and full of promise, and each one a completely viable winner. (That fact alone seems to demonstrate something important about the difference between reality show "reality" and life.) The most immediately commercial vision belonged to Teija Eilola—unsurprising, given that the Royal College of Art grad was, until recently, one of the heads of womenswear design at Ted Baker. Her collection was composed of accessible pieces, like a trench-inspired jacket, that boasted unusual details and sculptural construction. At the other end of the spectrum, at least where fashion industry experience is concerned, was Vita Gottlieb, who did graduate from Central Saint Martins, but with a degree in Fine Art. And prior to heading to CSM for her master's, Gottlieb spent eight years in the film industry, a background that seems to have contributed to the narrative quality of her clothes. Her dramatic textiles were a highlight of the evening, overall.But ultimately, the night belonged to Haizhen Wang. You might have guessed it would, given Wang's CV—M.A. hons in Womenswear at Central Saint Martins, followed by stints at MaxMara, Boudicca, and AllSaints that would appear to have given his design skill set a good rounding off. His collection's 3-D prints, engineered materials, and architectural construction were all genuinely remarkable. Even more remarkably, Wang put his technical prowess to work making street-smart, wearable clothes. Expect to see more of this young man.
17 September 2012
Not to be confused with Fashion East, the collective presentation of emerging London talent founded by Lulu Kennedy and funded by Topshop, the Fashion Fringe show represents the final face-off in a design competition something like a real-lifeProject Runway. Launched in 2004, Fashion Fringe claims the imprimatur of both the mayor of London and Harold Tillman, chair of the British Fashion Council, and it can count one undisputed success story, Erdem, among its previous winners. This year, the jury included Roland Mouret and Claudia Schiffer, and the three finalists whose collections they were judging couldn't have been more unalike.First up was Fyodor Golan, a year-old label designed by Latvian Fyodor Podgorny and Israeli Golan Frydman. The duo met working together at Alexander McQueen, and it was easy to read McQueen's influence into Podgorny and Frydman's high-impact, gothic clothes.Next was American Heidi Leung, who treated dressmaking as a form of collage. Working off a seventies-inspired palette of beige, bright green, and orange, and incorporating craft elements such as embroidery and quilting, Leung laid an instant claim to a distinctive aesthetic point of view. The silhouettes here were a little clunky, but Leung's ideas deserve further development.Last on the catwalk was Syria-born, Sheffield-raised Nabil El-Nayal. El-Nayal seemed like a heavy favorite going in—his dramatic, inventively constructed clothes were finessed in all the right ways, and he had the added feather in his cap of having his graduate collection from the Royal College of Art picked up by Harrods. Nevertheless, it wasn't his night: In what Fashion Fringe creative director Colin McDowell called a close competition, Fyodor Golan carried the day.
16 September 2011
"We have to make sure we nurture and support raw talent," said John Galliano at tonight's Fashion Fringe event, which he attended as honorary chair. That's obviously a necessity with which the London fashion legend is intimate, having benefited from a few generous, though informal supporters in the struggle of his early days. After the three finalists—Corrie Nielsen, Alice Palmer, and Jade Kang—showed their collections, Fringe founder Colin McDowell called the choice "a serious deliberation."Nevertheless, someone's got to win, and the prize of the night went to Nielsen, an American and Vivienne Westwood alum, whose wildly romantic collection, called Georgian Satires, was actually based on a mockery of French and English aristocrats. But you could see how the exaggerated eighteenth-century bustles and deconstructed mourning suits might make a dyed-in-the-wool lover of fashion history like Galliano sit up and pay attention. Though Nielsen's work also showed evidence of Rei Kawakubo fandom in the stuffing she used to create her distorted silhouette.Her fellow contender Alice Palmer's collection, called Fossil Warriors, was as neat and sharp as a pin. The Scottish native took a single great idea—a bicolor, accordion-pleated Lurex knit—and draped and sculpted it into dresses and gowns that looked a bit like beautiful alien vertebrae, but were wearable to a frock.There was also a sci-fi slant to Korean-born Jade Kang's collection, called Vibe. He draped his architecturally paneled body-con tailoring with lengths of silk, tulle, and chiffon, all in orange Creamsicle colors. A strapless bustier dress covered sarilike with coral silk was the best of the bunch, but the study in hard and soft needed more development.
17 September 2010
Journalist Colin McDowell was inspired byAmerican Idolwhen he launched Fashion Fringe six years ago. As withIdol, Fringe has had a few champs—like Erdem and Basso & Brooke—who have come out on top, and others who have…well, does the name Taylor Hicks ring a bell? The 2009 Fringe finalists paraded their collections in front of this year's honorary chair, Donatella Versace, before Jenny Holmes and Dimitris Theocharidis, who design as Jena Theo, were announced as the winners. They showed lots of tiering, swagging, and classical Greek draping in tops and dresses that occasionally scooped as uncomfortably low in the front as they did in the back (hence the need for a black leather pasty in one outfit).Serbian duo Lidija & Dejan also used pleating and draping for a classical effect. One dress had a gathered front that fell away from a breastplatelike bra. Another was draped in silver slave chains. Yelena Smirnova's aesthetic was more softly sculptural, her organzas and chiffons formed into organic shapes inspired by Henry Moore. Her deep red and cobalt blue were effective counterpoints to a pastel palette. Elliot Atkinson made tiny little dresses out of collaged colors, cutouts, and sheer panels. His blurry floral prints echoed previous winner Erdem. Collate the commonalities between the finalists and you'd be drawn to these conclusions: Pink is the world's favorite color; daywear is dead; and Versace is the most influential fashion house. We'll credit that last one to the presence of the honorary chair.
20 September 2009
"Fashion needs fresh blood, and London is the most creative place for that," said Donatella Versace in the backstage VIP room. She'd just flown in to chair the proceedings at the Fashion Fringe competition in Covent Garden—this despite the fact that her own show is only days away. Why would she take the time? "I always need to challenge myself as well," she said.To rewind a bit, Fashion Fringe is the London competition conceived five years ago by the journalist Colin McDowell along the general lines of Simon Fuller'sAmerican Idol. Newcomers, who need to be domiciled in the U.K., are vetted by a panel of industry experts, then set up in studios, and helped to produce sample collections. During fashion week, they compete against one another in a press show, after which a single winner is announced. Erdem, Basso & Brooke, and Sinha-Stanic are all Fringe alumni.This time, the Korean designer Eun Jeong Hong took the prize for an all-white collection of tiered-lace pieces and Grecian tunics—an accolade that will propel her fledging label Go By A Secret Path to instant visibility. The other contestants, Sarah Easom (a talented print designer whose collection was inspired by exotic birds), LF Markey (whose stiff, color-blocked shapes were inspired by Elizabethan costume), and William Tempest (va-va-voom corseted dresses), may or may not surface again, but their varying tastes flag up the things young Londoners are loving now: full-on print, intense color, and eighties glamour.
17 September 2008
In its second year, the Fashion Fringe competition, organized by veteranSunday Timesjournalist Colin McDowell, garnered some serious entries. From hundreds of applicants, four (who had to present business plans as well as samples and sketches to qualify) made it to the runway.As the show began, it became immediately apparent that two collections would be slugging it out for the prize. Modernist, a new label by Andrew Jones and Abdul Koroma, had sophistication sewn into every seam of its all-blue, perfectly executed line, featuring powdery suede coats and jackets with pouchy pockets, a mean pair of pants, and a couple of drapey bubble skirts and dresses. Pretty impressive for a pair of newcomers—though not quite so astonishing once you know they met while working for MaxMara in Italy.Erdem Moralioglu beat them, though. Showing last—always a bit of a giveaway in these circumstances—the Turkish-Canadian, who was educated at London's Royal College of Art, sent out a romantic collection of fan-pleated chiffon dresses and softly whimsical tailoring. Just guessing, but odds are it was the high-neck, sleeveless printed Edwardian dress, trailing a frilled lemon train that swung it for him.
20 September 2005
It was, in a way, rather touching (and perhaps inevitable) that London's newest young-designer initiative should end up feeling just like the old days—mammoth boozy party in a multistory car park, loud contingents of gate-crashing fashion students, and a group of recent graduates' clothes on the runway.But this is the twenty-first century, not theAb Fabeighties, and the event was Fashion Fringe, the culmination of a nationwide competition to find the next generation of talent, instigated by veteran LondonSunday Timescritic Colin McDowell. Fearing a decline in the excitement about London fashion—not to mention the perennial lack of funding—he corralled serious sponsorship from Red Bull and others, and wound up with £10,000 to bestow on the winner.In the event, a panel including Burberry CEO Rose Marie Bravo, BritishVogueeditor Alexandra Schulman, Hamish Bowles of AmericanVogue, and Giles Deacon chose the showstopper of the evening as winner—a collection by Basso & Brooke with hugely inflated leg-o'-mutton shoulders, nipped-in waists, and draped pants, all smothered in kitsch yellow-brown-green seventies prints. There were inevitable comparisons with Giles Deacon himself, not to mention a scintilla of Viktor & Rolf.Other contenders, like Sinhastanic, displayed more than a passing resemblance to Rick Owens in their raw-edged leather and drapey jersey shapes; Rubecksen Yamanaka, meanwhile, is already in business. It all added up to something both infuriating and funny that, if McDowell has anything to do with it, will become an annual event.
21 September 2004