All eyes were on our SmartFocus Catwalk when Salford’s graduate show mixed up womenswear, menswear and childrenswear. There was a strong focus on headwear with Amelia Cuffy Nash’s striking bee-keeper style hat, white veils and restrictive wooden cage masks. Jessica Lewis Tatton took us back to the sixties with her colourful Mohican’s whilst Lauren Rowlinson’s tailored pieces were accompanied with masks made in an array of colours and fabrics.
Although colour blocking seemed to be a recurring trend throughout the collections, Abbi Burgess and Tallulah Martin introduced the ‘Women in Black’ with their authoritative and powerful all-black collections whereas Alexandra Danko (who recently won the Topshop/BFC design award) turned to white- with her clean cut and feminine collaboration of silks and pleated satins.
Sarah Francis took polka dots to a new level, as she layered white and black mesh pieces with striking 3D polka dots in black, white and red. It was the perfect collaboration of innocence with brutality. In terms of technology, she introduced a screen to the back of one of her coats which added enhanced the movement of the piece. Finally, the fun was ramped up as Catherine Watts’ showed her childrenswear line which got the crowd on their feet. Yes, these kids took model behaviour to another level…
Words by Hannah Stacpoole
