JULY 2007
Since our first newsletter last month, I am pleased to say that Fashion Fringe has had a very good July, with interesting things happening on all fronts. I’ve mentioned some of them here but others are still at the ‘fine tuning’ stage and would be better mentioned in a month or two when everything is in place.
Like everyone else staging a Fashion show in London Fashion Week, we’ve been looking at venues for our Fashion Fringe show on September 20th, after last years fabulous space in City Hall, it hasn’t been easy. Compared to cities like Paris & Milan, London does not have so many spaces suitable for a fashion show but those that it does have are very good, and usually rather expensive. So we’ve decided to create our own. I am very pleased to say that, thanks to the generous support of Capco Covent Garden, we will be showing in the Covent Garden Piazza, an area full of history (think Hogarth, Inigo Jones and Palladian architecture) central to the heart of the city and one of the liveliest parts of town. You can imagine how excited we are.
Fashion Fringe’s trip to Central and Southern Asia was an unqualified success, with our finalists returning full of enthusiasm over their exposure to new cultures, having met other designers and craftsmen in the countries. The upshot is that the British Council has brought Saida from Uzbekistan, Attija from Pakistan, Farhad from Bangladesh and Zhanara from Kazakhstan have now arrived in the UK and are working with our finalists in their London College of Fashion studios.
We had a great evening at the Jette Parker Summer Concert on 21st July, where we saw Gavin Douglas’ stunning creations come alive on stage.
Fashion Fringe’s mentoring has already proved a great success with our finalists, one of whom said, “I feel as if I’ve learned more in five days than I would have believed”. Still to come this month are sessions with Pentagram to discuss branding & identities and NET-A-PORTER.COM to discuss online and global buyers. We wish to thank all the busy people who gave up their time generously to explain their part of the fashion world and, even more importantly, how young designers can become part of it and conduct a business armed with the invaluable insider information they received.
To end on an entirely different note, we were interested to pick up the following gem from the internet:
“Inspired by the wildly successful event that takes place during London Fashion Week,
Fashion Fringe is the first ever campaign to recruit the hottest undiscovered design talent in Canada and showcase them directly to the consumer.”
We’ve heard of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery but it can go too far. Our name is registered around the world but even so it is at times like these when it is a comfort to have a strong company like IMG at your side!
Best Wishes,
Colin McDowell
Creative Director, Fashion Fringe
- Further information can be found at www.fashionfringe.co.uk
- The 4 finalists will be given a grant by Fashion Fringe for materials, technicians and living expenses. They will be offered access to technical staff and studio space through London College of Fashion to assist in preparing their collections.
- Fashion Fringe is supported by:
For further enquiries email fashionfringe@imgworld.com