Art as fashion. Fashion as art.  Get on board to a movement that counters the out-of-control ‘cut and sew’ robotic-produced fashion thrown our way with no artistic and sustainable values.

London Fashion Week’s On|Off runway show sent a message to shake up the status quo.

All Power to the Imagination. . . a little known creative resistance slogan scrawled on Paris walls during the uprisings of 1968 was created by Situationist International — a group of evolutionaries made up of avante-garde artists, intellectuals, and theorists, who were pro Dada and Surrealism; anti-establishment.

This statement highlights the mood at On|Off this season.  It reflects a yearning to protect the art of fashion, individualism and self-expression.  A positive message of hope for the creative industry at a time of enormous, revolutionary change, and upheaval.  Each of the designers – House of SheldonHall, IYA₦U, 404 Studio, Yan Dengyu, and ZAFUL – demonstrate original, experimental, daring, dramatic, and to some degree outrageous statements.  This vision is an expression to convey fashion as art, fulfilling an emotional connection.  The mass produced clothing industry is not sustainable, not only due to the ecological and social crisis, but to the automated fast fashion design and production that prohibits a real creative energy as seen in the work of these designers.

Take a look. . .

House of SheldonHall are Steven Sheldon and Emma Hall.  House of SheldonHall combines experimental textiles, application and innovative pattern cutting techniques to produce fashion unlike any other. British eccentricity at its best. One off pieces designed, hand-painted, embroidered and hand-made in Yorkshire. The SheldonHall’s woman is brave, living out fantasy through fashion.
Pieces requested by the likes of British Vogue, Nicole Kidman, Katie Grand, Tatler, Lady Gaga, Ru Paul’s drag race royalty Valentina, and the duo’s mourning gown was coveted by the divine Miss Fame, for the opening gala of photographer Tim Walker’s recent Tim Walker: Wonderful Things exhibition at the V&A.  The design duo have proven a genuine demand for their style.

IYA₦U is a London based textile designer who celebrates a trans-cultural identity, effortlessly fusing her Nigerian roots with a British upbringing.  Collections pivot around graphics, composition and color, creating a unique identifiable signature.  After successfully completing a BA in Textiles in 2013, she was awarded a postgraduate scholarship at The Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design where she completed a Masters program in Fashion & Textiles.  In 2018, IYA₦U debuted her fashion collection, Youth, in Lagos, Nigeria.

404 Studio is an emerging fashion brand based in Spain. With film as it’s inspiration, it offers a unique contemporary approach of modernizing traditional methods of design that produce high quality crafted knitwear.  Since its inception in 2017, 404 Studio has presented collections in the Soho House (Barcelona), Silencio (París) and MBFW Madrid and has dressed national and international artists, such as Dua Lipa, Mala Rodriguez, Paco León and Miranda Makaroff to name a few.  404 Studio has been hailed as one of Spain’s top 20 fashion labels, for it’s international efforts and unique, playful outlook.

After affording a BA in architectural design, Yan Dengyu went on to graduate from Glasgow School of Art with a Masters degree in Fashion and Textiles.  During this time, he consolidated skills in cutting and draping.  His lust for pattern, exaggerated structures and volume is present in all that he does. For Dengyu, fashion is performance, an art-form: his work is theatrical, metaphorical, and futuristic.

ZAFUL was established in Hong Kong, 2014, with the aim of creating diversity and edgy fashion
must-haves for the new millennial audience.  With its European head on, ZAFUL now looks to harness a new audience.  For Autumn Winter 20, ZAFUL join’s forces with, Atip Wananuruks, Fashion Director of Highsnobiety, for a special capsule collection, which embraces the Gen-Z love of digital creativity, but with a nod to ZAFUL’s vibrant past. This collection debuted at On|Off this season.

Over the last twenty years, On|Off has mentored, and showcased more than five hundred designers. It has kicked off the careers of some of the greatest.  Its year-round mentoring and business support program continues to inform and drive pivotal areas of production, communications, networking, as well as showcasing collections on the main stage of London Fashion Week.

More on London Fashion Week On|Off – https://onoff.tv/aw20overview

All Images: courtesy of On|Off