Amazing Grace

I was reading the Evening Standard tonight and was delighted to see

that London’s evening paper has singled out in a Leader how the

capital is a ‘magnet for talent’. Some of the collections may have

been wacky, ’eccentric’ and ‘provocative’, the Standard said, as well

as being about as commercially minded as an Isabella Blow business

plan but the talent ‘proves the creativity ad vibrancy of out fashion

world’.

I was especially pleased by the news that Grace Wales-Bonner, a former

Fashion Futures finalist has won the L’Oréal Professionnel Talent

Award 2014 at the Central Saint Martins BA Fashion show.

This is because I made four special hats for Grace’s St. Martin’s

Fashion Show (previous winners of the B.A graduate show include haut

milliner Philip Treacy). Grace supplied me with some hat designs and I

turned them into her hand-stitched bespoke millinery creations.

I was introduced to Grace through a fashion world friend called Lucy

Archibald (now Guinness) who has a company called Poplin that makes

chic pyjamas which I also can’t recommend enough (I love my Gatsby PJs

with their decadent emerald green piping).

Grace (or Gracie) is not be confused with Grace Weller, another

equally talented young fashion designer from Bath Spa University, who

won two awards at this week’s Graduate Fashion Week gala at London’s

Brick Lane’s Truman Brewery. Over 1,000 fashion students entered the

awards from over 40 universities.

Like the graduate shows of the art world, competition is intense to

get noticed. Damien Hirst was first noticed at Goldsmiths art college

in London as well as when he staged his break-out art college show

Freeze. Collectors like Charles Saatchi often bought their first YBA

paintings at the graduate fairs.

Grace had to battle with 39 other fashion students who were showcasing

their collections at the St Martin’s Fashion School graduate show. Now

feted by the fashion editors of Vogue and Dazed, Gracie has had her

talent noticed ever since she was a finalist in the FAD teenage

fashion designer awards back in 2008.

I know how hard it is to break through with an original voice and

style in the fashion industry. So I congratulate Gracie and look

forward to collaborating with her again with her collections in the

future.