Class of 2020

#Renewal

Communicating across various media and forms of practice, students presenting their graduate projects this week share a desire to use their work as a catalyst for change. Curated under the theme of Renewal, the selection features projects that challenge the status quo, critique the construct of the fashion industry and propose new solutions. Topics explored by graduating students include our consumption practices, our relationship to nature and female representation among others.

#Connection

Now, more than ever, we are missing, protecting and discovering connections within our immediate physical world and the digital realm. Through this horrific and challenging period we have re-connected with ourselves, who we are and what we do.

Students have been immersed in a new world of isolation creation where they must connect with new ways of learning and designing, and to their benefit. The works they are creating have expanded their visual vocabulary through growing multi approaches to their practice and how they connect their work with us.

Old connections are redefined, supported and rethought through unexpected digital and alternative interventions. There is no educational loss in this moment, only gain.

Will we reconnect with the old world? Well maybe the next generations new methodologies and outputs can answer that question. In the process of connecting with their work we can expand our capacity for wonderment and our collective vision of the future.

#Body

In the second week of our LCF Class of 2020 campaign, we present works centred around the theme of the Body. Students we profile this week investigate forms of bodily expression and augmentation through analogue design - garment, costume, make-up, prosthetics and footwear among many others - and through new digital tools that enable to them to question the physicality of the body and to expand its definitions into the virtual realm.

#Identity

In this week’s selection, we profile the work of graduates who explore different facets of Identity - from imagined characters brought to life through costume, make-up and prosthetic design, to deep explorations of gender, sexuality, race and cultural identity through the medium of fashion design and fashion image.

Using a diverse spectrum of approaches, graduates critically examine the influence of gender norms, heritage, cultural context and new definitions emerging in virtual environments to offer a diverse range of perspectives on the notion of Identity, presenting it as a source of personal inspiration and a site of creative experimentation and play.