Central Saint Martins class of 2023 presents designs at LFW

Fashion

Looks presented by the Central Saint Martins graduating class at LFW AW23. From left to right, designs by: L'Oréal Award winner 2023 Yaku Stapleton, Hayley Shou, Franceska Lake.

On Monday, February 20, twenty fashion master students from the graduating class of 2023 at Central Saint Martins (CSM), UAL, had the opportunity to present their creations on the London Fashion Week catwalk.

The designs were the result of months of research, design and fabrication under the guidance of Fabio Piras, course director of the fashion programme at the academy.

Sponsor L’Oréal awarded several prizes to emerging designers from CSM as well as its annual tradition of recognising three students of the graduating class.

Student Yaku Stapleton took home the L’Oréal Professionel Creative Award 2023 for his collection entitled “The Impossible Family Reunion in RPG Space: Research into the Afro-Futurism Movement.

For his collection he was inspired by his past and what a cross-over between online role-player games and his research into perception, scale and human form would look like.

Looks presented by the Central Saint Martins graduating class at LFW AW23. From left to right, designs by: Maxime Black, Isabel Maccines and Louisa Fleischer.

Central Saint Martins graduating class 2023 recognised with three awards

The L’Oréal Professional competition was evaluated by Ib Kamara, art and image director at Off-White and editor in chief at Dazed.

Designer Yaku Stapleton commented on his win in a statement. “I am still lost for words and I think it will be a while before I feel back on earth,” he said.

”I already felt on cloud nine for producing a collection I was proud of so being awarded the L’Oréal Professionel prize felt completely surreal to me.”

In addition to the award courtesy of sponsor L’Oréal, a second award, Canada Goose’ Humanature Award for Responsible Design, was awarded to two students of the Central Saint Martins 2023 graduating class.

Designer Chié Kaya was recognised for her collection entitled ‘Heirloom’, a reconstruction of a contemporary menswear and womenswear wardrobe.

Looks presented by the Central Saint Martins graduating class at LFW AW23. From left to right, designs by: Canada Goose Humanature Award winner 2023 Chié Kaya, Nomvelo Dlamini and Oscar Ouyang.

Student Alessandro Tondolo was the second recipient of the Canada Goose ‘Humanature Award’. He presented his graduate collection ‘Cohaeresco’, which is Latin for ‘growing together’, highlighting the dissonance between humans and nature in his designs.

Looks presented by the Central Saint Martins graduating class at LFW AW23. From left to right, designs by: Giorgia Presti, Woojun Jang and Pinanki Shah.

Looks presented by the Central Saint Martins graduating class at LFW AW23. From left to right, designs by: Ellen Poppy Hill, Alena Nevedrova and Humanature Award winner 2023 Alessandro Tondolo.

Looks presented by the Central Saint Martins graduating class at LFW AW23. From left to right, designs by: Xuesong Yang, Sifan Chen and Nora Kassim.

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