GFW catwalk: University of Northampton

Back in March, alongside Gavin Douglas and Company's Kirsty Hathaway, I was on the panel of judges for the inaugural Fashion Fusion Awards, which took place in Birmingham and was the brainchild of two recent fashion promotion graduates. I was impressed with their tenacity and ability to pull together a full house event that attracted the sponsorship of Harvey Nichols Mailbox, among others.
This may seem a diversion from the GFW cause, although arguably it demonstrates what can be achieved once a graduate graduates, but the reason I mention it is that the winner, Tanveer Ahmad, was a 2007 graduate from Northampton; Gavin Douglas also trained at Northampton, fact people. I am not sure how much his collection progressed between June last year and the awards, but his collection was a real blow the cobwebs away showstopper - all black, it explored the hijab in a truly contemporary way, through garments, accesssories and styling, creating look after look that you would die to have in your wardrobe. Gavin Douglas is currently looking into getting Tanveer down to London to work with him in his studio; if he can persevere and find his foothold, I have no doubt he could be very successful and look forward to hearing how he progresses. His collection really sets the bar for what a great student can achieve in their show, so naturally was interested to see what the college could come up with this year.
Overall, the show was pretty strong - I mean, this is somewhat subjective, but I could see a lot had been put into the development of the collections. Gavin Douglas had made the trip up to Northampton to help with the selection for the catwalk, and I can see some of his influence coming through, as there were strong elements of tailoring and structured garments which Gavin seems to favour.

//// Victoria Pangbourne (above): created a sharp, all-black collection, hard-edged femininity; it was a collection for grown-ups, which is something of rarity at GFW - which is fair enough, given this is the graduates opportunity to experiment, yet at the same time should be encouraged given the growth of this sector of the market. Victoria got it right - with enough exxagerated, slick detail to make the looks ultra-covetable.

//// Catherine Neville: to the crescendo of Michael Jackson's Dirty Diana, Catherine's fitted leather biker jackets with stiffly frilled shoulders which framed the head like an Elizabethan ruff was stand out; the gold was mixed with vivid hues - silk cut purple, emerald green, cyclamen pink - which lent the collection a dynamic air.

//// Jody Parchment (above, left): This was one of the footwear and accessories graduate collections and didn't fail to capture imagination - dual colour platform stacks in neon brights, coupled with glossy, oversized bags in hyper hyper fruit colours drew admiring glances.

//// Michelle Jackson (above, right): this textiles for fashion graduate created some fantastic geometric, eye-popping monochrome prints, which strutted down the catwalk in the form of bodycon basics.

//// Craig Fellows (below): I loved this tongue in cheek take on ultra-feminity, by another textiles for fashion graduate. The low-key pastels, off-set with bright blue, made flouncy garments which really highlighted the qualities of the print and fabrics.