“All these different guys coming together and moving in a space. Strength in unity.” These words, spoken off-the-cuff by Saul Nash, the newest of the designers to come into the fold created by Lulu Kennedy’s Fashion East could be taken as a boilerplate statement for the diversity that’s rising through London’s young creative community. As set against the horrors of the social divisions that Brexit has brought to the surface, the trio brought together under this long-standing not-for-profit organization consists of one black British male designer, Nash; an Irish woman designer, Robyn Lynch; and the Nigerian Mowalola Ogunlesi. All very different talents—yet all Londoners, and all products of British art schools.
Saul Nash is a dancer and choreographer from North London who gained a scholarship to explore his interest in performancewear at the Royal College of Art. His opening section of a group of dancers consisted of friends and peers, there to demonstrate the innovations Nash has in development; clothes designed to enhance freedom of movement through his system of curved zippers and mesh. “There’s a lot of technical fabrics that I’m progressing—I see it that way, as opposed to scrapping things every season and starting again.” Above and beyond that, the point for him in having a runway show was to be able to share something about masculinity and emotional bonds. “They’re all really strong dancers. I cast them because each one brings a sense of himself. For me, movement can say a thousand words.”
Lynch also designs out of personal experiences—in her case, reminiscing about old-school sport uniforms as they used to be worn in Irish communities in the days before sports-kit had anything to do with fashion. She had a thorough-going vision, reiterating hitched-up shorts, T-shirts, regular trousers, and fragments of Aran knitting in waves of top-to-toe color.
It was Ogunlesi‘s second outing at Fashion East, and she had huge audience appreciation for it. Building and strengthening what she did at Central Saint Martins, she concentrated on using slick colored leathers to make halter-necked suits, with tight pants and belts buckled with sacred and profane symbols: a cross, a religious icon, the Stars and Stripes, the words sexy and m-ther f-cker. “I base it on what I’m going through—I’ve just fallen in love for the first time; I feel as if no one talks about the horrific side, the dangers of love, of losing control of your emotions and feeling like you’re crazy. It’s like how I see a horror movie!” she related. “So this is as if I’m in a black Woodstock Festival, and someone has been murdered.”
Her picture of glam hyper-sexual carnage—including gunshot wounds and bloodied hands—is strong stuff, evidence of a kind of club scene that runs between London and Lagos. That the British fashion scene continues to give room for all these disparate voices makes a positive stand for inclusivity in dark times. Credit to Kennedy for that.