Aurélie Fontan II

Aurélie Fontan's graduation collection 'T E N S E G R I T Y //' was full of movement, the depth of plastic adding to this effect. Aurélie Fontan's work focuses on design for sustainability, exploiting both craft and technological innovations. This collection encompasses the wearer like a cage, creating an exoskeleton of plastic, a meccano like encasement. 

At the graduate fashion week Aurélie's collection was awarded the Marks and Spencer Womenswear Award, The Dame Vivienne Westwood Sustainable and Ethical award and the Catwalk Textiles Award.

"I am a very hands-on designer and the whole collection started from the materials I was using. Being able to create and manufacture my textiles from scratch was an exciting process. Specifically, I have worked in a science lab (Ascus Art & Science) that is the only public-access lab in the UK, and they have kindly allowed me to develop my bio-textile, so that I was able to grow my own dress." Aurélie Fontan

" TENSEGRITY is a collection that originated from the alarming effects that our human activities have on our environment. As a young designer, I felt that my responsibility lies in the active research of low environmental impact materials and processes. TENSEGRITY is a combination of the holistic approach I have taken through various design strategies, including Design for Disassembly, Design for Slower Consumption and Design for Waste Minimization.

The collection is based on several closed-loop systems, involving an alternative seaming method that allows different fabrics (wool, Modal, cork) to be separated when recycled. The range also includes bio-textiles, in the form of a grown fabric that is 100% biodegradable and put together with soluble cable ties made from corn starch. The garments themselves are mainly cut with a zero-waste construction of panels layered in tessellation. Moreover, the lasercut textures are created based on a double helix DNA waste-free pattern." Aurélie Fontan

Rhys McKenna

Rhys McKenna 'Orbital Agency Library': Configuration' 

"My research is driven by sculptural and painterly creative disruption in fashion cutting and modularity. My design work is a direct response to the crafting of a library of pattern components, each reflecting a diverse array of research interests. These include an exploration of the modernist sensibilities of Henry Ford and the explosive collisions of the Large Hadron Collider. I have also introduced methods of experimental improvisation and improbability advocated by the author Douglas Adams, whilst enacting painterly working methods of the Royal Court Painter." Rhys McKenna

Maddy Stringer

Maddy Stringer's graduate collection for Fashion at ECA was deliciously different, red and gummy it felt like the models were dressed in confectionary. 

"This collection explores the human need to collect, examining my own collections of hotel soaps and dolls house furniture to explore why we have personal collections with the mundane. The overriding theme is scale drawing inspiration from the distorted sizing found in the dolls house I had as a child. Juxtaposing the traditional woven patterns of miniature rugs with a textural plastic embossing technique creates the unexpected surface to my designs." Maddy Stringer

Kate Macmahon

"My collection is based on the concept of preserving and archiving memories, I drew inspiration from Marie Antoinette and the different perceptions of her throughout history which created the idea that we are remembered by the preserved memory of us, I juxtaposed 18th century dress with utility wear through the buckled fastenings which strap down the back of my dresses. My collection is made from wadding which was ripped, plucked and  flattened and then printed onto, I was very fortunate to be sponsored by Sophie Hallette who provided me with the beautiful French lace which was bonded behind the printed cotton fibres. Photography is another key inspiration for this collection as moments are captured through this medium, The blue prints based on cyanotype and are X-ray florals which were inspired by Marie Antoinette love of flowers. 

The collection explored who Marie Antoinette would be in today’s current society." Kate Macmahon 

Michelle McAuley

Michelle McAuley's graduate collection for the ECA fashion show had incredible movement and many tribal qualities, while her textures, silhouettes and colours were visually striking and stimulating.

"My collection stands for electric awakening of traditional craft, using no bought fabric. Everything is handcrafted, woven and knitted by myself. The collection searches for strength, innovation and reinvention to empower women through architectural silhouettes. is titled ‘silueta’. It explores the form of a woman’s body creating sculptural form around the body, made from 1400 meters of rope all individually sewn together which allowed me to sculpt and mould the dress. The undergarments are hand woven from butcher cord, I wanted to create a modern, vivid and unapologetically bold with a mix of sculptural and draped woven cuts." Michelle McAuley

Holly Macleod

Holly Macleod's bold, layered, screen printed collection from ECA fashion show at The National Museum of Scotland. 

"My collection is inspired by the feelings of misplacement that fly tipping evokes -something I myself have always found oddly charming- as it is something familiar, in an unfamiliar place. Silhouettes were created by playing with the obscured perspective that collaged images create. Specifically inspired by the collages of the Dada art movement, whose values of the nonsensical and fun were key to my collection.
Prints are made up of hybrid animals -the ultimate collage/ idea of misplacement- which was interpreted through the creation of zebra and leopard prints from the elongation of hybrid animal limbs within the print." Holly Macleod