BA students from across LCF’s fashion media and communication courses had the opportunity to apply for Fashion Matters BA Final Collection or Research Awards to help support their final collection or project.
The winners have been announced, and this year include Egle Andriuskeviciute from BA Fashion Styling and Production and Rebecca Thomas from BA Creative Direction for Fashion and Maria Clara Lorusso from BA (Hons) Fashion Photography. We find out what these awards mean to the winners and how it will help them realise their final project.
How did you find the award application process?
Egle Andriuskeviciute: At the time of the application for the award I was busy writing my dissertation, working on my final major project, interim show and working three days a week but luckily the application process was really easy and did not take long to fill in!
Rebecca Thomas: The award application process was not difficult at all. I’m extremely passionate about my project and being able to translate that into a 500-word essay was not hard.
Explorations of the everyday starring Victor Leleca, by Egle Andriuskeviciute
How will this award help you realise your final project?
EA: This award will help me complete my project to the fullest. The budget was one of my main concerns, as my degree is entirely self funded. I was afraid I would not be able to afford the materials for the final installation, but with the award, I no longer have to worry about it.
RT: As my project’s final outcomes involve a film, image stills and an interactive website, it requires quite a bit of technological support. Collaboration can only go so far and there are still elements that are beyond my expertise that require me to get help. For example, I will need to use certain editing software/programs that would help me reach the potential to which I can deliver these elements for my final outcome.
Maria Clara Lorusso: This bursary will help me a lot in the printing process. Creating a book for visually impaired people can be very expensive, since embossing is a very expensive process. I am considering different ways to embed braille in my publication, and the award will give me the opportunity to test different ways of creating tactile alphabets.
Tell us why fashion matters, and how your work reflects this idea/these ideas?
EA: I believe that fashion is often overlooked in terms of responsibilities and the influence that it brings to society, even though it is an industry that plays a significant part in the global economy. I believe that instead of promoting mindless consumption, fashion could use its influential status to promote more mindful living.
RT: Fashion Matters, to me, was something that could help me bring more substance and importance to my project. I believe so strongly in fashion starting to play an influential role in the conservation of our tiny planet. As one of the biggest and most influential industries, they contribute heavily to the depletion of our natural resources and cause a great deal of environmental damage from processing goods like leather. It is important that they take an active role in using their power in the industry for good.
MCL: Fashion, for me, is a vehicle that permits people to express who they are. Fashion makes people free. Fashion is not for an elite, fashion is for everyone. As an image maker, it is important to make fashion visuals accessible to visually impaired people.
Tell us about your final project.
EA: My final major project is exploring the everyday routine and different ways to see beauty in the everyday and the mundane. My work questions the lifestyle of the spectator while analysing current life-work balance and the way we tend to overlook the everyday objects and fail to examine the system we have succumbed to.
My final major project is going to be an installation, which plays on the idea of everyday and imaginer. This is some of the film and photography work that I will be releasing as a part of my project.
Explorations of the everyday starring Victor Leleca, by Egle Andriuskeviciute
Moodboard by Rebecca Thomas, photos taken from Pinterest.
RT: My project is a step into revolutionising the leather trade in the luxury fashion industry. Modern Meadow is a company that have managed to create real leather without killing animals and without causing much environmental damage at all. Their use of science and technology to create this leather gives so much opportunity for the fashion industry to join forces and start giving consumers a ‘real’ alternative. Creating a collaboration with an ethical leader like Stella McCartney, who has one of the biggest voices in luxury fashion, to steer this campaign would bring more value to the introduction of this leather into the industry. I stand by her values and views of the production of fashion and think she works so well as the voice of my project.
This project will include a campaign to introduce bio-fabricated leather into the fashion industry. The campaign will include a short film which will be launched on an interactive webpage that would also hold information into how the currently leather production is really affecting the world. Ignorance is not a choice anymore and it’s time for people to get together and make a difference. Included on the webpage would be a slideshow of still images which many include a mock-up design of a Stella McCartney bag launch with bio-fabricated leather.
Maria Clara Lorusso, BA (hons) Fashion Photography
MCL: As an image maker, it is fundamental to create material that could be accessed by a wide variety of people, including a visually impaired audience, so my aim was to find a different way of creating images. My project is based on this similarity between photography and poetry, using them as a tool to create images and narrative on the same theme. The poetry is embedded on the photography, with the tactile braille alphabet. But the theme of the project, is about revealing the concealed sexuality repressed in strongly Catholic environments, directly relates to my youth and to the years I spent in southern Italy where women still suffer the rules of a society based on beliefs, traditions and patriarchy.
- Find out about all the scholarships, bursaries and awards available to students.
- BA (Hons) Creative Direction for Fashion
- BA (Hons) Fashion Styling and Production