Escaping Emily

I came across David Longshaw's debut London Fashion Week collection on the Young British Designers Facebook Page. The colours - muted blues, yellows and greys contrasted with black and royal blue with interesting sculpted shapes and sketchy prints are what drew my eye to this collection. What I really love is that there is a story behind the collection. David Longshaw not only has a natural talent for fashion but also illustration (he won the Colin Barnes drawing prize 2005) and he has also contributed to a number of publications and uses his illustrations and story writing as a starting point for his collections.

So here is the tale of an abandoned puppet, rediscovered by a rather disturbed fashion designer named Emily...

Emily, the disturbed individual in question, has moved to San Giovanni in Marignano, a picturesque Italian village, a few miles from the seaside resort of Cattolica. Despite the charm of the Italian village, Emily became home-sick. That is, until one night, whilst rearranging her apartment in an attempt to distract herself, she discovered a peculiarly proportioned puppet (dressed in a floral t-shirt and high waisted trousers with exaggerated pockets) slouched in a wicker basket under a puzzling avalanche of watch and clock parts and a book of pressed flowers. Charmed by her discovery, Emily began to tell the puppet tales from home. The tales became ever more wild as did Emily’s re-enactments of scenes from her past using the puppet. Soon it was thread bare and badly damaged. Left with little choice, the puppet tried to make armour for itself from whatever it could get it’s paws on. But ultimately what it had to do, was Escape Emily. To read the rest of this tale with the illustrations head here.
David has a BA (Hons) from Saint Martins and an MA from the Royal College of Art. After graduating in 2007 David received a flurry of press and nominations for International Awards (ITS6,Trieste, Le Vif Weekend, Belgium, Cove Park, Scotland) and had secured a position at Alberta Ferretti before his final graduate collection was even shown. Although very keen to launch his own label he felt it was important to gain more internationally commercial experience, so went on to work for Max Mara. Now concentrating on his own label, he continues to consult for International fashion houses.

But as well as the talented David have you met Maude?! Maude 'is a fictional FASHION fabric mouse I CREATED AT sT mARTINS- USING cASHMERE GIVEN TO ME BY rICHARD jAMES OF sAVILE rOW' She has interviewed the likes of Julie Verhoeven and Holly Fulton and is well worth a read!!

Speak Soon
Fashion Fantasist xx