IN LIGHT of the current worldwide pandemic, Graduate Fashion Foundation has had to cancel Graduate Fashion Week which was due to be held at Old Truman Brewery in East London this summer. GFF, being inextricably linked with the academic year, was not able to post-pone the shows and instead have found new mediums to showcase their UK and International talents – from activities and competitions to online webinars.
Supporting 14 universities from around the world that are GFF International Members for 2020, the charity highlight the Top Talent on their website and celebrate diverse groups of emerging fashion designers who explore fashion through the lens of technology, sustainability, history, religion, conflict and more.
Below, Glass showcases four of Graduate Fashion Weeks’ selected international talents:
- Sarah Mair from Akademie Mode und Design
23-year-old nature lover Sarah Mair’s final collection is titled The New Nomad and is heavily inspired by her travels around Morocco and the Tuareg people – a large nomadic Berber society. Focusing laboriously on sustainability, Mair’s collection is made from up-cycled sails. She illuminates an imagined nomadic future society and what they would wear to survive. Read more about Sarah Mair and her collection here on the GFF Website.
Sarah Mair’s graduate collection 2020
Sarah Mair’s graduate collection 2020
- Chor Sze Tung from Donghua University
Visual-art enthusiast Chor Sze Tung studies at Donghua University, Shanghai. Her final-year collection is inspired by parallels between the natural world and the human face, exploring the contours, gradients and textures that characterise the two. “Three-dimensional subjects makes our world full of beauty,” Tung says during her interview with GFF – a quote that complements her work as she focuses on colour and silhouette to emphasise the three-dimensional layers, using gradient colours of different brightnesses. Read more about her work here.
Chor Sze Tung’s graduate collection 2020
Chor Sze Tung’s graduate collection 2020
- Clara Shanie Pranata from Binus Northumbria School of Design
Meet Clara Sahine Pranata, from Binus Northumbria School of Design. Inspired by the dichotomy between rural and city living, her collection illuminates rural aesthetics into the city as she tries to find harmony between the two worlds. With research at the heart of her projects, Pranata’s final collection became a fusion of urban and rural style.
Mixing the utilitarian silhouette with that of corporate employees posed as a metaphor of the feeling of being stifled in a crowded city. Now broadening her horizons as a creative, Prantana is planning to use her fresh-graduate period to experience new things, pursue hobbies, and to slow down for a little while. Read more about her collection here.
Clara Shanie Pranata’s graduate collection 2020 
Clara Shanie Pranata’s graduate collection 2020
- Tamara Toby from IED Barcelona
Tamara Toby is a fashion graduate from IED Barcelona. Her final collection delves into the veiled world of brothels and prostitution in which she observed growing up in Israel. Inspired by seven words: Passion, Pain, Fear, Feminine, Violence, Control and Romance, the collection explores stories behind the women of the sex industry. Discover more about her collection here.
Tamara Toby’s graduate collection 2020 
Clara Shanie Pranata’s graduate collection 2020
GFF’s exclusive collaboration with TikTok
Alongside supporting their international talents and member universities, Graduate Fashion Foundation has also announced a special collaboration with prevailing social-media platform TikTok. The pair have produced an exciting new competition and partnership in a bid to help fashion students whose prospects have been adversely affected by Covid-19.
The partnership will task GFF’s Class of 2020 fashion students in designing TikTok’s first-ever range of merchandise – keeping it fashionable, ethical and distinctively TikTok. A total of 70 students will be selected to participate in a five-day creative residency, held within a professional factory environment in London, with mentoring from some of today’s leading designers, GFF patrons and TikTok Creators.
Ultimately, a five-piece commercial capsule collection will be created which will go into a professionally manufactured collection. Accommodation will be provided by TikTok to all participating graduates along with a competition prize of £500 each.
Additionally, 20 top students shortlisted for the GFF Fashion Marketing and Fashion Communications Awards will be given the opportunity to enter a competition to design the ethical packaging for the student collection.
The residency will run this July and will be in line with government recommendations as pertaining to Covid-19. The submissions for designs and mood-boards open from Friday 12 June, with the deadline on Wednesday 24th June. Winners will be announced on Friday 26th June.
by Molly Denton