Central Saint Martins Moves BA Graduation Show Online

Central Saint Martins released a 20-minute film to showcase the final collections of 106 graduating BA Fashion course students on Wednesday. The film showcases CSM students’ radical views on fashion and the world during this turbulent time. It started with a woven flag of England with the word “Shame” written on it, by Gus Langford from the fashion print pathway. Opening scene of the Central Saint Martins BA Fashion Show 2020 video, featuring an England flag with Shame written on it, by Gus Langford. Each student was asked to make two looks of their final collection and an accompanying short film to illustrate their narrative.

Highlights from the lineup include Jessan Macatangay, a Filipino student from the fashion design with marketing pathway. His collection, featuring chromatic structure made from scrap chairs across the body and layers of colorful draping, centers around the idea of “finding beauty and power in struggle.” He used a chair to represent struggle on this project, and referenced Melanie Bonajo’s photography, Erwin Wurm’s one-minute sculpture, Madame Grey’s draping technique, and print works by Filipino artist Ben Cabrera.

“Even though a chair is made for you to rest, when you put it in a different position on a body, you give it an opposite power, which becomes heavy and painful. The best solutions are to face and deal with that struggle and manipulate it by finding ways to fit through it. This resulted in me asking my muse to try on a chair and finding every opening she could to make it fit, and I deconstructed the chair,” explained Macatangay. “The collection starts from a big sculpture on a body and then it becomes smaller on the next models. This signifies that when you face a struggle, it becomes smaller and eventually becomes part of your body, making you stronger, more powerful and a better person,” he added.

Other standouts judging from the video include Harris Reed, Yoobee Son, Scarlett Yang, Bahan Lin, James Walsh, Jisoo Jang, Mathilde Rougier, Saaba Stapleton, Salome Kappelin and Violette Villeneuve. There are no winners chosen, and no edit to the lineup as the school would do for the press show in previous years. The school explained “it wasn’t right” to do so.

“When lockdown happened and the physical fashion show was canceled, we quickly decided how we could showcase our students’ work,” said Sarah Gresty, course director at the school. “We felt it was important to celebrate their creativity despite the huge challenges of the crisis. I am so proud of the students and the work they have produced. The class of 2020 is resilient, intelligent, brave and creative. We will never forget this year.” The school will also introduce an online platform, bafcsm.com, to host portfolios of the 2020 graduating students from Friday.