Kingston Fashion Stand Graduate Fashion Week 2014
The Kingston Graduate Fashion Week stand was open for business from 31st May – 3rd June 2014 at the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, London. This is a new venue for GFW although a familiar one for emerging art and design talent generally.
The Kingston stand is the result of extensive collaboration between The Design School staff, students and their industry partners. It started as a curriculum option design brief for postgraduate students across the School and was run as a competition, with MA Design: Product+Space duo Virginia de Colombani and Shen Kai Lan winning.
The stand’s primary purpose is to present the BA Fashion student portfolios, a culmination of their tremendous endeavour and investment, to industry and peers. The portfolio is consequently placed at the heart of the design strategy. This manifests itself in a few basic operations – portfolio presentation, study and discussion - with two elements of furniture to accommodate, the portfolio display ladders and the ‘Butchoff’ table. These elements are simply distributed to define the overall stand space. It was recognised that 27 portfolios on display could become unmanageable and unsightly, so it was decided to present their spines only, like books in a library. The ladders reinforce the library reference and are designed for the operations of presentation and study - the visitor selects a portfolio from the portfolio box and studies it on a shelf beneath. If further discussion is required, this is undertaken at the table with the student and/or staff. The portfolio is purpose designed, made from a single piece of 3mm thick folded hide making it pleasing to handle.
The table is a mid Victorian, walnut, tilt-top with marquetry hunt scenes that inform the leather portfolio design. It has been loaned by Butchoff Antiques with whom a collaborative partnership was already established on another postgraduate project as part of their 50 year anniversary celebrations. It is a distinctive piece, particularly within the context of the raw industrial venue, and lends a weighty presence that anchors the stand with authority. Three Eames Plastic Side Chairs on loan from another collaborative partner, Vitra, provide an immediately confident and complementary modern counterpoint that sets the tone for the rest of the stand in keeping with GFW’s industrial theme. The final element of the design is the delicate silk georgette drape hung from a slender, blackened steel frame matching the ladder frames. It provides a soft division of space between Kingston and the neighbouring stand and also creates a small degree of enclosure and privacy at the discussion table.
Photo credit: Ezzidin Alwan
