Students with designs on fashion (From Western Telegraph)

Students with designs on fashion

Think catwalk fashion and you think: Concept art; innovation and originality; you think Would they wear it in Wolfscastle?!

But at the acclaimed Pembrokeshire College Fashion Show recently, which showcased the collections of students of fashion and textile design, the models wore garments that stayed just this side of wearable without losing the ability to amaze.

FEW people could carry off a corset-style top made almost entirely of wood, but Jessica Thompsons piece was truly a thing of beauty and a mini work of art in its own right.

Catwalk fashion is never about wearable clothes, but instead demonstrates a creative process - and while some of the garments displayed would be too wild or wacky for your average High Street shopper, just watch out as the influences filter through in the clothes we all wear in the future.

Fashion has a cyclical nature, and it often feels as though there is a common consciousness surrounding all designers as they so often draw on similar influences each season.

The urban chic, street fashion designs from several of the students had just enough originality about them to make the audience sit up and watch, without removing the event from the reality of dressing up into the realms of performance art.

Stunning too was a collection inspired by William Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream, designed by second year students Nancy Gardner, Paula Travers-Spencer, Marina South, Stephanie Matthews, Carrie Watkins, Rachel Edwards, Vanilla Harrison, Jessica Thompson and Emma Bowen. This beautiful collection of wispy, ethereal dresses, a rainbow of colours, would be equally at home in a production of the play - or at a summer ball. At the other end of the scale Carrie Watkins and Rachel Edwards presented a sophisticated take on a monochrome theme in Black and White, providing the kind of studied elegance that would suit an Oscar ceremony.

In stark contrast, the Latin and gypsy influences in the Jubilation collection of flamenco-style outfits added an earthy passion to the proceedings, which continued to amaze the audience as each section was introduced, each one bringing something new and fresh and innovative to the event. The international status of the college was obviously never far from the students minds, and part of the show saw several students from countries across the world modelling their national dress, which provided a neat juxtaposition with the students own designs bringing 21st century influences to these traditional costumes.

The sheer professionalism of the staging of the show, at the Colleges Merlin Theatre, was as breathtaking as the collections on display, and the team work was evident with designers and models being seemingly interchangeable as one wore anothers designs to show them off to their best advantage.

Whether it was an interest in fashion, in design, or in stage management that brought the audience to the College that night, it was an event that satisfied everyone.