GALLERY: Gray's School of Art fashion show

The north-east’s most promising young fashion designers showed their wares during the Gray’s School of Art fashion show.

Held at Aberdeen Art Gallery, the focus of this year’s show was sustainable textiles inspired by Harris Tweed Hebrides.

The collaborative fashion design project, ‘Uniform’, featured six fashion looks created by 12 fashion and textile students from Gray’s.

Students were asked to integrate Harris Tweed Hebrides into their designs, following in the footsteps of leading fashion designers such as Vivienne Westwood, Tom Browne, and Stone Island.

Fashion show students ‘loved the challenge’

Students were asked to integrate Harris Tweed Hebrides into their designs. Image: Martin Parker/Gatehouse Design & Print Consultancy

One of the students involved in Friday night’s show was Sophie Bishop.

She said she was inspired by snow sports, having learned to ski during her studies.

“My final piece incorporated silhouettes from mountain ranges, tubing slopes and the padding associated with snow wear.

“We had a variety of tweeds to choose from and decided on a bold tweed to represent our overall theme ‘Home is where the heart is’, relating to our personal and family-related uniforms.

“The tweed was difficult to work with at times, but I loved the challenge. It gave us great experience with new fabrics, and learning about the heritage of the tweed was really interesting. It made me want to work with it again in the future”.

Some of the eye-catching designs on show at the Gray’s School of Art fashion show. Image: Martin Parker/Gatehouse Design & Print Consultancy

A model struts their stuff on the catwalk. Image: Martin Parker/Gatehouse Design & Print Consultancy

From sketch to catwalk

Another student whose garments got the catwalk treatment was Joanna Robertson.

She said: “Working with Harris Tweed Hebrides has been a fantastic opportunity to work with heritage fabrics in new and contemporary ways.

“Harris Tweed Hebrides is made by a community, as are the looks we put together as a group of new designers.

“With a family history of weaving, it felt really important to do something exciting and bold, to really showcase the fabric. So as a team we decided to create really big contrasting silhouettes to highlight the sculptural qualities of tweed.

“It’s been an incredible process seeing how a garment can go from a sketch on a piece of paper to being walked on a runway in the middle of an art gallery.”

Libby Curtis, Dean of Gray’s School of Art. Image: Martin Parker/Gatehouse Design & Print Consultancy

Over 300 people attended this year’s Gray’s School of Art fashion show. Image: Martin Parker/Gatehouse Design & Print Consultancy

Gray’s textile tutor Charles Hackett called the show “incredibly successful”, with 330 people coming along to watch. He said the students had been “inspired by one of the most famous fabrics in the world”.

Amanda McCarthy, Helena Milne and Taylor Ross were in charge of the make-up, with Linton & Mac looking after hair.