Fashion Scout's SS27 Ones To Watch Show @ LFW

Ones to Watch has made a name for itself as being an early spotter of emerging talent, hosting the next big names in the fashion industry. Taking place this year in Shoreditch, excitement for the upcoming designers was tangible on the air as crowds bustled at the mouth of the exhibition venue in which we were soon to be seated.

NMCG

Inspired by the interaction of Catholicism and youth culture, Niamh McGovern’s designs feature paired-back colours to evoke a sense of subduement and modesty, yet these are incorporated into radical silhouettes more akin to styles associated with youth. The prevalence of the colour white throughout the collection can be seen as symbolic of purity, a virtue semantically associated with both the teachings of Catholicism, and the sense of innocence and uncorruption of youth, emphasising how the spaces of religion and youth overlap in terms of their connotations. McGovern’s use of corseted designs seem to be a direct evocation of the radical self-expression that being young lends itself to, while seemingly counteracting traditional catholicism. However, the rigid boning of corsets can be seen in a symbolic light as representing feelings of constraint. Together, this juxtapositioning of the freedom of self in youth with moral confinement invites a discourse on how young people increasingly find religion to be too oppressive or self-limiting. The collection as a whole depicts the fine balance of the Venn diagram between youth culture and religion, evoked primarily through its simplistic textiles being used to form modern silhouettes. 

Raxada

Maria Puente Silva and Marina Palacio Silva’s collection, inspired by Asturian mythology, reimagines the northern Spanish myth of ‘the clouder’ as an ethereal feminine divine being rather than a masculine source of evil. The Asturian version of the myth posits the existence of a malicious mythological entity that can control the clouds, creating storms at his will – through the ruffled cloud-like tropes of their last design, the myth is reframed through the more feminist depiction of a figure akin to mother nature, a positive being rather than an evil one. 

The diaphanous, muted tones of the collection can be seen as not only depicting clouds, but equally evoking the ghostly sense of being not quite there; through the lens of Asturian mythology, this transforms the stage into a metaphorical Santa Compaña, or procession of souls. 

BAM-BAM

A final standout was BAM-BAM, a collection centred around geometric patterns through the medium of streetwear garments. The bodies of the models were incorporated into the designs to a greater extent than many other collections, making each piece individual to the wearer, with models acting as vessels of meaning as important in shaping interpretations of each garment as the designer. One of the ways this was done was through hairstyles that reflected the illustrations that ran through the designs. For example, one model’s hair was sculpted into gravity-defying cubist spirals, directly mirroring the geometrical shapes of the piece’s imagery. Another’s hair was shaped into several similarly gravity-defying plaits: they branched out from the head in a zig-zagging manner similar to a cephalopod’s tentacles, furthering the sense that each garment’s interaction with a model’s features bestowed a new meaning upon it. This opens up the question as to whether a model’s purpose is to display art, or be part of it – through BAM-BAM, we are encouraged to believe the latter.

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All Images Courtesy of Black PR and the Ones To Watch press release.

Edited by Katie Sweeney, Co-Fashion Editor.