Graduate Fashion Foundation to showcase 6 designers at LFW

Graduate Fashion Foundation is returning to London Fashion Week this February for the fourth season to showcase six emerging designers - Sarah-Louise Koessler, Tyesha Camacho, Sophie Parnaby, Christopher Reid, Hena Begum, and Joshua Scott.

The showcase will be in collaboration with Visualist, the new productivity suite for fashion creatives, to further elevate graduate talent discovered at Graduate Fashion Week 2020 to a global audience.

Graduate Fashion Foundation is partnering with Visualist and their team of creatives to produce this season’s digital designer content for London Fashion Week, which will including an innovative photoshoot and video creation for all six designers.

The team at Visualist met the cast and crew for the very first time on shoot day and instead of being physically on set, the six designers who are spread across the UK and Portugal, participated remotely via private livestream to be able to direct and guide the styling of their collections.

Joy Campbell, director of brand partnerships at Graduate Fashion Foundation, said in a statement: “The six amazing graduate designers that were selected for this incredible opportunity now have the chance to further establish themselves in the fashion industry at a time when it has never been more difficult to do so.

“We are so grateful for Visualist for bringing their expertise and experience to allow the students to collaborate remotely to ensure we creatively and accurately represent their brand to the world.”

Graduate Fashion Foundation teams up with Visualist for London Fashion Week showcase

Cherie Yang, founder of Visualist, added: “For Visualist, supporting Graduate Fashion Foundation’s emerging talent has been most rewarding. We’re particularly encouraged by the diversity and talent of this group of designers, cast and crew, and also their openness to embracing new ways of working with Visualist. We’re looking forward to continuing to support GFF’s talent and enhancing their creative workflows.”

The designer’s taking part includes Sarah Louise Koessler, a French/British designer who graduated from the University of Brighton and is currently based in Portugal working on her eponymous brand; London-based designer Tyesha Camacho who founded Camat by Tyesha as part her graduate collection whilst studying at University of the Creative Arts Rochester; and Yorkshire-based, double Graduate Fashion Foundation Award-winning designer Sophie Parnaby, who graduated in June 2020 with a BA (Hons) from Manchester Metropolitan University and is currently building her luxury clothing and accessories brand from her studio.

The final three designers are Scottish designer Christopher Reid who graduated from Edinburgh College of Art; Hena Begum who launched her brand after graduating from the fashion and textiles course at The University of Portsmouth and won the Graduate Fashion David Band Textiles Award 2020; and avant-garde fashion print designer Joshua Scott, who graduated from University of the Creative Arts Rochester and continues his part-time Masters in Printed Textiles for Fashion and Interiors whilst perusing his experimental brand.

On being selected to showcase, Joshua Scott said: “I’m using the infancy of my brand as an opportunity to keep my horizons broad as an avant-garde designer but also a print artist. This opportunity is allowing me to grow as a designer and the shoot process with Visualist to create the LFW imagery has been a huge learning curve. It was honestly such a shock to get the email saying I’ve been nominated and I’ve been on cloud nine ever since. Last year was extremely tough and getting this news was a breath of fresh air, I’m just so grateful that I’m getting to share my work.”

Image: courtesy of the designers - main image - Sarah-Louise Koessler, Tyesha Camacho, Sophie Parnaby; Second image - Christopher Reid, Hena Begum, Joshua Scott