LONDON, Jun 16, 2009 / FW/ — Yesterday, the British Fashion Council confirmed that House of Holland, Mark Fast, Mary Katrantzou, Meadham Kirchhoff and Peter Pilotto are the winners of the TopShop supported NEWGEN fashion sponsorships.
The designers will unveil their Spring 2010 collection during London Fashion Week in September.
House of Holland
Henry Holland graduated from London College of Printing with a BA in Journalism, starting his imaginative slogan Tees in 2006 as a bit of an in-joke, when Giles Deacon and Gareth Pugh took their London catwalk bows wearing each other’s respective Tees from his Fashion Groupies series.
In February 2008, (following 2 seasons with Fashion East), they held their first solo show on the main Fashion Week schedule, with New Generation sponsorship from Topshop, presenting “Passio Factionis” collection for A/W 08, featuring a House of Holland family crest, exclusive purple tartan, for which they later won ‘Best Use of Tartan Award’ at Scottish Fashion Awards, and tailoring by Savile Row’s Norton & Sons.
Presenting “Sex, Lies & Volleyball” collection for this summer, they showcased a radical collaboration with Levis 501; fast forward a couple of months, and a heavily pregnant M.I.A would appear alongside Jay Z and Kanye West to perform at The Grammy’s wearing the sheer net dress with polka dot panels.
Inspired by Pantone colour shades and Dulux paint cards, this winter’s collection features strapless wool jumpsuits, cashmere knitwear and double crepe silk shirtdresses, and is the first time the designer has used Swarovski.
Mark Fast
Mark Fast is a 28 year old Canadian designer. He moved to London in 2002 to attend Central Saint Martins where he completed his BA and MA in Fashion Design Knitwear. While attending CSM Mark created knitwear for Bora Aksu for three seasons.
In 2007 Mark showed his graduate collection at the Central Saint Martins show at London Fashion Week and caught the attention of buyers from Browns Focus in London. Mark showed his Spring / Summer 2009 collection at ON/OFF’s show at the Royal Academy of the Arts, London in September 2008.
Mark was awarded New Gen support in January 2009 and showed his A/W 09 collection in the tent at London Fashion Week in February 2009. Mark Fast is now stocked in seven countries worldwide.
This year’s highlights for Mark include being invited to work with Another Magazine on a special project with Tilda Swinton and contributing to the Loewe ready to wear show in Paris.
Mary Katrantzou
Greek born print designer Mary Katrantzou has made a name for herself with her bold and graphic prints and her industrial jewellery.
She studied at Rhode Island School of Design before transferring to Central Saint Martins to complete a BA in Textile Design. She then went on to graduate from Central Saint Martins with a distinction in MA Fashion.
Her work fuses art into fashion, working with objects from design that are in turn translated into print. Trompe l’oeil is employed in a modern way, adding a hyperreal quality to the prints.
After receiving NEWGEN sponsorship, she showed her A/W 09 collection during London Fashion Week. Following her S/S 09 collection on oversized jewellery, hyper-real imagery was further explored for A/W 09.
Perfume bottles and the reflective quality of glass inspired the collection. Gaultier and Givenchy, among other designers, have designed perfume bottles around the female figure in the past. In this collection, Katrantzou turned that idea on its head, placing the perfume bottle on the woman.
The perfume prints accentuated the female figure, creating the illusion of an hourglass silhouette. A separate jewellery line was an integral part of this collection, once again highlighting her other talent, that of a jewellery designer.
Meadham Kirchhoff
English Edward Meadham and French born Benjamin Kirchhoff graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2002. The pair launched their womenswear collection, Meadham Kirchhoff, as part of Fashion East in February 2006.
The pair has since won further shows with the scheme and have more recently been awarded catwalk sponsorship as part of the NEWGEN scheme for the last 2 seasons.
Defining their aesthetic incorporates a classic take on both bourgeois garments and hard street cultures. The continuous ongoing struggle between dark and light develops the label’s signature use of toughness against fluidity. The woman they design for is uncompromising, nonchalantly elegant, intelligent and melancholic.
Peter Pilotto
Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos are the designers behind the Peter Pilotto label. Pilotto is half-Austrian, half-Italian and De Vos is half-Belgian, half-Peruvian. They met whilst studying at Antwerp’s prestigious Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the year 2000.
Peter Pilotto’s vision of womenswear embraces both new and classic perspectives on elegance. Otherworldly prints combine with soft sculptural shapes to form the handwriting of the design duo, something which evolves and is explored each season as opposed to being reactionary.
Pilotto is focused toward textile and print whereas De Vos concentrates more on silhouette and drape. However the duo works beyond their individual perimeters to create something new, their process being very organic and beyond an integration of the two fields.
Spring / Summer 2010 will mark the fourth London catwalk show for the design duo, of which they were awarded NEWGEN sponsorship.
Photos courtesy of London Fashion Week
